


If you have the Hounds

by dragonyfox



Series: to experience incredible things [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, Multi, its gonna get rough for a hot second i think??? its not all the way written yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-08-24 07:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16635443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonyfox/pseuds/dragonyfox
Summary: ...go ahead and pursue.





	1. naruto

**Author's Note:**

> hey I made a spotify playlist for this fic. I'm still adding to it, but it exists! [here you go!](https://open.spotify.com/user/dragonyfox/playlist/2QNSYGDYxkqXhTDZCzo5gI?si=p9wSmJPGSoyAIx_Ien5e2Q)

Naruto had a little journal that he'd just started a few days before it happened. He'd designed and written a seal on a slip of silk and stitched it into his jacket, so it could go everywhere with him and he'd never have to worry about enemies reading it. Not even Sakura or Sasuke knew how to unseal it, and he planned to never tell either of them. His journal was where he put all of his too-fast thoughts down when they wouldn't go away, so he could stop thinking them for at least a while

He wrote in it every day, even the day that Kakashi was killed and they had to run, and the day after that, and the day after that. He never missed a day, not even when he had been captured by bounty hunters that one time. 

It helped him, a lot, in more ways than one. It let him get his grief out in a healthy way, and it helped him focus when his brain was rebelling, and it served as a reminder, though not a grim one. The first few entries are labelled simply by date. The rest are dated and numbered, which he began the day that Kakashi was murdered. 

He'd done it impulsively, spitefully. November 7, his entry for that day read, Day One of being a missing nin. One Day since Kakashi-sensei was murdered. He didn't know why he kept doing it, but he knew when he'd stop: the day they were able to kill whoever ordered Kakashi's assassination. 

.

He removed the calming seal from Sakura on Day Thirteen. They'd found a wrecked cabin in the middle of nowhere in Fire Country, and Sasuke had declared them safe enough to stay for a few days. She screamed and cried and cursed them for taking her away, for not being there when it happened, for not stopping it. She hit and kicked and cried so hard that she nearly threw up. 

Naruto held her throughout it, letting her fists and feet leave bruises that he knows will heal in moments. It hurt, of course it did, he won't lie. Kakashi had taught Sakura how to hit hard, and whoever her crazy taijutsu teacher was had taught her to hit even harder, and she wasn't pulling her blows in the least.

"I'm sorry," she'd said after, "You didn't deserve that."

"It's okay, Sakura," Naruto said, meaning it, "you needed that. I'm always going to be there when you need me."

.

On day twenty-three, Sasuke said, "I'm cursed, I think."

"What does that mean?" Naruto had demanded. 

Sasuke had shrugged. "This is the second time this has happened to me. You should probably leave me, if only for your own safety. I'll be fine; I always have been."

"Don't be dumb," Bisuke said. "That's not how it works at all, kid."

It had taken Naruto an embarrassingly long moment to realize that yeah, it had, actually. Not only did Sasuke lose Kakashi, he'd also lost almost all of his clan years ago, when it had been destroyed by his own brother. Naruto honestly couldn't imagine going through that twice. It was a wonder that Sasuke was functioning as well as he was.

"You're not cursed," Sakura told him severely.

Sasuke scowled. "Then how do you explain-?"

"There's something poisoned in Konoha," she spat, then, sounding angrier than Naruto had ever, ever heard her. "Obviously that was an inside job. You've heard the rumors that they've already fucking spread. Nobody in their right mind would ever believe I'd- I'd-!"

Sasuke seemed too stunned by the fact that Sakura had just cursed to respond, and while Naruto was stunned, too, he knew that if he didn't jump in, she was going to force herself to say something that was bound to give her a panic attack. 

"Duh," Naruto said, "Of course nobody sane thinks you did it. It's a really bad lie."

"Plenty of people are going to think I did it!" Sakura shouted then, spinning on him. She hadn't washed her hair since they'd run, and it was upbraided and frizzy and wild and reminded Naruto somehow of white fur stained with blood. "I'm going to be blamed for his death! All because- because he- because he fucking loved us!"

"I know," Naruto said, trying to soothe and knowing he was going to fail, "I know. We'll fix it, when we're stronger, okay? I promise. We'll get whoever did this, okay? Promise of a lifetime, we'll get the fucker who did this."

Sakura nodded, and it was so very relieving to see a bit of life in her eyes again. 

Naruto nearly jumped out of his skin when Sasuke snorted loudly, then started chuckling, and then laughing. Sakura didn't seem to know what to do, either, and somehow they both just froze and stared at him until he was able to bite out some words between laughs. 

"I have a hit list, now," he said, "I'm a fucking cliche. I have a hit list!"

"Oh," Sakura said, apparently getting it, "we're missing nin and we have a hit list."

Itachi, Naruto realized, and now whoever was involved with Kakashi's death. It didn't take long for Naruto to join Sasuke in hysteric laughter, and then Sakura was infected as well, and it took the three of them a good hour to recover enough to start cooking the dinner their dogs had hunted for them.

.

Day Thirty-two is the worst birthday Naruto has ever had.

.

Things started to calm down on Day Forty-six. They hadn't heard hide nor hair of pursuers, and the rumors had started to mutate beyond what had been spread intentionally, which meant that the person who spread them had no control over them anymore. Yamato had told him that the second information wasn't or couldn't be controlled, the battle was mostly over. 

The settled down in a forest near a farming village. Sakura refused to dye her hair, no matter how much Naruto begged or shouted. She compromised by using a henge and allowing Naruto to test out disguise tags on her. Sasuke had no such reservations about his hair, and willingly agreed to let Naruto cut his hair differently enough that he wouldn't be recognized as an Uchiha. 

"Fuck clan-approved hair styles anyway," he'd muttered while Naruto chopped at his hair with a kunai. 

"Yeah, it was pretty outdated," Sakura agreed.

"And ugly," Chika said, "I've had to look at that stupid hair cut every day since you summoned me. You don't even know how relieved I am that I won't ever have to look at it again."

Naruto had to stop for a solid fifteen minutes to laugh. 

.

Day Seventy-eight caused a shakeup, and by shakeup Naruto meant they'd been found by a team from Konoha and the three of them had nearly had simultaneous heart attacks. 

"Wait!" the jonin shouted, "Hold on, we won't attack!"

Naruto knew he shouldn't, knew his team and all of their dogs would lecture him so hard, knew he'd be scaring the shit out of all of them. But he also hoped, and it was that hope that made him stop and listen. 

"The lie they've spread is ridiculous," the jonin said in a rush, ignoring the protests of his students that he capture or kill them, "Kakashi Hatake, killed by a chuunin-level ninja? Maybe by poison, but not like that. You have people on your side."

"Who?" Naruto demanded, kunai in hand. Hotaru had her hackles raised, and Shiba and Bull are on either side of her, their teeth bared in threat as well.

"Too many to name, but," the jonin paused, then said, "but I know you weren't the only defectors. Some guy named Kinoe or Tenzo? And a medic from the hospital, named Akari, no surname."

Naruto couldn't help the grin that spread across his face at that news. "Hey, thanks, shinobi-san. That's the best thing I've heard all month. What's your name?"

"Kaito Yoshida," the man said. "May we never meet over blades."

"Yeah, same to you, Kaito-san," Naruto said, and then disappeared into the trees after his teammates. 

.

Naruto spent the entirety of Day Seventy-nine being yelled at, and he took it with all the grace he had in him, because he knew that they had friends who could help them.

.

They heard news of Sasuke's brother on Day One Hundred and One. He'd left whatever organization he was a part of, and seemed to be hunting down certain Konoha ninja. 

"It doesn't make sense," Sasuke admitted after he raged about the fact that his brother existed, "I kept up on any information about him I could find, even some shit I shouldn't have been able to get to, and he's never killed a Konoha ninja after the Massacre."

"Remember a week or so back," Sakura said abruptly, "when Kaito-san sent us a message? That bit about how there were ANBU showing up dead at the gate? And that nobody even had records of these ANBU existing?"

"I remember," Sasuke said. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Naruto frowned. "Everyone has records, even ANBU. Theirs just get like, redacted and shit. I snuck into the records room a bunch of times when I used to do pranks, because nobody ever looked for me there. ANBU files are marked, but all of the things they do when they're in it get totally blacked out, even their deaths."

Akino hummed. "That sounds familiar, but I can't place why."

"Familiar?" Naruto replied, alarmed. "You mean you've heard of this before?"

"Yeah, but like I said, I can't remember why it sounds familiar," Akino said. "It must have happened in the few months a couple of years ago when he was always out on missions that he didn't summon us for. Pakkun would know more, but..."

Naruto winced. "Let's not bother him. Sakura, any thoughts?"

"To not have records at all," Sakura said slowly, "means that they weren't put in the system."

Sasuke scowled. "What does that mean?"

"It means," Sakura said with a snarl creeping onto her face, "that something is really, really rotten in Konoha, and whatever Itachi is doing, regardless of why, is exposing it."

.

Sakura disappears for a whole twenty-four hours on Day One Hundred and Thirty-eight. It took Naruto longer than he'd ever admit to realize that it was her birthday and that it was her first without her mom. He and Sasuke agreed to not say anything when she returned.

.

They don't run into Tenzo until Day Two Hundred and Seventeen, and it's jut a brief meeting in a motel in the shitty part of a town in Grass Country. He's being hunted harder than they are, so it's too dangerous for him to stay with them, but he tells them he risked the meeting to make sure they knew he was on their side. 

"Oh, yeah, we knew," Naruto told him, grinning, "We ran into someone a while back that told us you and one of Sasuke's teachers defected 'cause of us! We haven't run into her yet, but if you meet her-"

"Oh, speaking of," Tenzo said, jolting and pulling something from an inside pocket of his jacket, "Sasuke, Akari told me to give this to you if I saw you. I'm going back to where she is soon, so if you want to send a message, I can take it."

Sasuke took the offered scroll and says, "tell her I said thank you."

"We have a place that's kind of safe," Sakura added, taking a piece of paper directly from Naruto's pocket and scribbling something down. "We don't go back too often, but we use it as a dead drop sometimes, when we have to split up, and it's good for an under-the-nose kind of hiding spot."

Tenzo took the paper, read it, and then absorbed the paper into his skin. "Thank you. I'll remember this."

.

Day Two Hundred and Fifty-nine, Sasuke tells them about his worst birthday, and then forces them both to nearly buy out a nearby tomato vendor as a gift to him, which somehow turned into a big shopping spree. 

It cheered all three of them up, somehow, though by the end of it, they were completely out of money and had needed to resort to pick-pocketing until they picked up a new job.

.

They met up with Akari on Day Three Hundred, and Naruto witnessed Sasuke initiate a hug with someone of his own free will. 

"Holy shit," Sakura whispered to him. "You saw that, right?"

"Yeah, Naruto whispered back, "Can you believe it?"

"Stop fucking talking about me like I'm not here," Sasuke snapped. "Don't be fucking weird."

Akari snorted and ruffled Sasuke's hair when he pulled away from her. "Yeah, yeah, kid, I'm glad to see you too. I like this hair cut better than your last one, by the way."

.

Day Three Hundred and Five would have been Kakashi's birthday. 

"We should figure out some way to like, honor him, I think," Naruto said right after breakfast, when all three of them were properly awake. "Tenzo said that he picked up a bunch of things his old teammates used to do before they died. What if we, like, did that?"

"If I catch either of you reading those dirty books-!" Sakura growled. 

"Oh, ew," Naruto yelped, "No, not like, directly copy him, but like! I don't know, find something to do that like, reminds us of him?"

"Dibs on being late to things," Sasuke said. Chika barked out a laugh from her perch on his shoulder as he radiated smugness at having called the easiest and most personally convenient of Kakashi's habits. 

Sakura groaned. "You're just going to use this to get out of doing shit you don't want to do, when we're-"

She stopped, and Naruto knew she almost said 'back in the village' when none of them were sure they'd ever be able to go back, regardless of how they brought Kakashi's killer to justice. Even if they did it in a way that made them look like heroes, would they want to go back?

"I'll take the books, then," Sakura said instead of finishing her original protest. "I've always liked mysteries, anyway."

"Then I'll do..." Naruto paused. "Jeez, what can I do?"

"The mask," Sasuke offered. 

"No," Sakura argued immediately, "He'd look stupid, plus he hardly has the patience to wear a scarf in cold weather. He'd go insane wearing a mask all day, every day."

"Yeah, I'd totally burn it off your face if you started wearing a mask," Hotaru agreed.

They argued for about an hour before Uhei jumped up and started barking. "His gloves! I have some stored away in the between-worlds, cause when he was younger he used to go through them like crazy!"

And then Uhei disappeared with a puff of smoke and reappeared moment later, holding a pair of gloves in his mouth and wagging his tail proudly when he dropped them into Naruto's waiting hands. 

Naruto pulled them on immediately and nodded. It felt right, that it was something barely noticeable yet still meaningful. It's not like anyone who didn't know Kakashi would know why Sakura would be reading shitty mysteries or why Sasuke would be late to things. 

"I miss him," Sakura said quietly, later that night, after dinner was done and the three of them were piled together on one sleep roll and curled up with all nine dogs. "I wish..."

"Don't," Sasuke said. "He wouldn't want that."

"I know," Sakura said, and fell silent.

.

Sakura asked him to make her a reusable seal for her budding book collection on Day Three Hundred and Seventeen. Naruto wasn't sure how the fuck she'd managed to acquire the dozens of mystery novels that all seemed to have nearly identical covers in such a short period of time, but he made her a seal on a scrap of silk for her, and stitched it into her kunai pouch, so she could whip out a book like Kakashi used to. 

He doesn't say anything when she spends the rest of the day practicing the maneuver.

.

On Day Three Hundred and Twenty-four, Sasuke throws the both of them into a panic when he doesn't show up to the arranged meeting spot on time, and recieves a tag-team lecture for it when he does appear. 

"I swear on Chika I'll never be later than an hour for you two," he begrudgingly promised afterwards, "At least until we're somewhere that's properly safe."

"Deal," Sakura and Naruto agreed.

.

Day Three Hundred and Sixty-five is the anniversary of Kakashi's and Tsubaki's deaths. They spent most of the day looking for a shrine to pay their respects at, and when they found one, they spent the rest of the night there.

.

Sasuke left them for longer than the usual couple of weeks on Day Three Hundred and Seventy-nine. 

"Akari's going to finish my training," he told them stiffly. "It's necessary. Lay low while I'm gone, because I won't be there to patch you up if you do something stupid, got it?"

"Got it," Sakura said, then hesitated and asked, "will you take Urushi with you? I'd feel better if you had more backup than just Bisuke and Chika. Not that they can't handle themselves, of course, but..."

"Yeah, yeah, and Bull!" Naruto added, "If something happens, have Urushi reverse summon back to Sakura, and Bull can stay and help, y'know?"

Sasuke softened. "Yeah, of course."

.

Tenzo appeared on Day Three Hundred and Ninety-seven with a box that he promptly handed to Naruto. 

"It's from Sasuke," he said, "he told me he's sorry he missed your birthday, and asked me to bring this to you. It's been quiet enough recently that I figured it was safe to bring it to you on your birthday proper. Happy birthday!"

Naruto beamed and ripped open the box ruthlessly. 

Inside was a new bomber jacket nearly identical to his first, which Naruto was beyond grateful for- his old one was tattered around the edges from training with his team and their dogs and the scrapes they've managed to get themselves into and out of. He slung it on right away, and looked back into the box. 

There were dozens of rare and weird ramen flavors, which would have been enough to make Naruto a happy man, but underneath those was something that he freely and happily would admit that he cried over. 

Sasuke, somehow, had gotten Ichiraku Ramen's recipe. 

"I'm going to marry him," Naruto announced, tears of joy still in his eyes. "I don't care what that means, this is a marriage-worthy present that he just sent me, y'know?"

.

It was quiet without Sasuke around, even though he hardly spoke. Even quieter without Urushi and Bull. Thankfully, on Day Four Hundred and Thirty-nine, he appeared in their camp as though he'd never left in the first place.

"Your hair!" Naruto shrieked. 

Sasuke's hair reached down to just past his collarbone now, and when he registered what Naruto had shouted at him, he touched his hair. If Naruto didn't know better, he'd have guessed that maybe Sasuke was self-conscious of it.

Sakura stared, too. "You grew it out. I thought you hated having long hair. You haven't had hair past your ears since that time in Year Three when Kiba said you looked like a girl."

To both of their surprise, Sasuke laughed lightly. "Yeah, well, I didn't have time to cut it-- Akari-sensei is a slave driver-- and then a team of Konoha shinobi walked right past me without even recognizing me, so I decided to keep it."

"This is how long your hair gets when you don't cut it for a few months?" Sakura demanded. "It takes me a year just to grow back a couple of inches!"

Sasuke shrugged and reached out to scratch Taiki between the ears. "Good genetics, I guess."

.

By Day Four Hundred and Forty-two, Sakura had taught Sasuke at least a dozen different hair styles he can do with his new long hair. He puts up with her hands in his hair more than Naruto ever thought he would, and even seemed to enjoy the attention, which was somehow not as surprising as it should have been.

.

On Day Four Hundred and Sixty-three, Sakura acquired half a dozen bottles of various alcohols and convinced Naruto and Sasuke to get drunk with her. Naruto still wasn't sure how he agreed, and remembers only three things from that day:

  1. Sasuke had gotten drunker than both of them and admitted that he was in love with someone, but passed out before either of them could ask who.


  1. Sakura could hold her liquor better than Naruto could, and he was the one with the insane metabolism.


  1. Naruto really, really liked Sasuke's new hair, and according to what little was legible of his entry from that day, that's all he wrote about. 



.

Naruto got kidnapped by Kiri of all places on Day Four Hundred and Ninety-nine. What happened to him honestly wasn't awful, except that he was separated from his team and his pack, but he still doesn't tell either of his team what happened, other than that the Mizukage owed him a favor and that he was never going to ever eat tuna ever again. 

.

On Day Five Hundred and Three, Naruto and Sasuke send Sakura, Taiki, Uhei, Akino, and Urushi to a spa that was renowned for how well it kept its patrons' secrets. The two of them had scrimped and scrounged and done so very many odd jobs for months to afford to give her a three-day pampering that they both knew she absolutely deserved. It wouldn't make up for not having her mom there for her sixteenth birthday, they knew, but it was still something. 

She'd cried on them both and then kissed them both on the cheek right before she disappeared into the building. 

Naruto touched where she'd kissed him and looked to Sasuke, who was staring at him with wide, surprised eyes and touching the spot where she'd kissed him as well. 

"Well, I guess that means she likes it," Naruto had joked. 

Sasuke's lip twitched. "I suppose so."

.

Sakura returned on Day Five Hundred and Seven, holding a tiny, tiny little puppy. 

"Puppy!" Naruto exclaimed and threw himself towards her to examine it. "Baby puppy! Ohhhh, he's so cute, I love him what's his name when did you get him whats his breed-"

"Naruto, breathe," Sasuke said, yanking him back and taking his place, albeit much more calmly. 

"I don't know her name yet," Sakura admitted. "I summoned him on the way back 'cause Uhei said I had enough chakra to tether another dog to me, and I got kind of excited and summoned her on impulse. I think she's a wolfhound."

Naruto cooed over her some more. Her fur was grey and a little wild. She was about as old as Taiki and Hotaru and Chika had been when they'd first been summoned, and was about as big as Taiki, if a little thinner. It was pretty obvious that she was going to be pretty big when she was older. 

"Her fur reminds me of Kakashi's hair," Sasuke said, reaching out a hand to pet her. 

"Me too," Sakura said softly. 

"He'd love her," Naruto said, scratching Hotaru's head and letting Sasuke have a turn with the puppy. "I mean, he loves all dogs, but I think he'd especially love her, y'know?"

"Yeah," Sakura said, "I do know."

.

On Day Five Hundred and Twenty-seven, the puppy said, "My name's Maiya!"

"You can talk finally!" Sakura beamed. "Hello, Maiya, it's nice to meet you properly, finally!"

Maiya nodded her little head and let her tongue loll out of her mouth for a moment. Then she said, "I'm gonna be a really big dog, one day. My mama said so."

"Of course you are, Maiya," Sakura said, petting her head softly. "You're a wolfhound! You're gonna be as long as Sasuke is tall one day!"

Sasuke, currently, was the tallest of the three of them, at five foot eleven.

“Oh, jeez,” Naruto said, looking at Sasuke. “He’s gonna be huge.”

.

Day Six Hundred and Four brought a surprisingly easy-to-defeat team of Konoha chuunin sent to capture them.  

“Huh,” Naruto said to Hotaru when the team was subdued and tied up, “We’re, uh, we’re pretty strong, aren’t we?”

“Of course we are,” Hotaru replied easily, “We were raised right.”

“If you’re going to talk, can you at least help?” Sakura demanded from her spot on a rock next to the river, where she was cleaning Maiya’s muzzle of blood. “Urushi’s a mess.”

“Make Sasuke help!”

“Sasuke,” Sasuke said dryly, “is busy healing our pursuers.”

Naruto sheepishly grabbed a clean rag and beckoned Urushi to him and began cleaning his muzzle of blood.

.

Day Six Hundred and Seventy-Two brought a jonin squad. Luckily, the squad consisted of Anko, Kurenai, and two men who happened to be sympathetic.

“It’s bullshit,” one of the men said, “Like, no offense, but Kakashi Hatake? Copy-Cat Kakashi? Killed by a fifteen-year-old? No way, man.”

“None taken,” Sakura said. Naruto didn’t miss the way her fist clenched while the man was speaking.

“We should spar,” Sasuke said.

“Yes,” Kurenai agreed, “If you lose, we’ll say you ran off after trapping us somehow. If you win, we’ll tell them you beat us unconscious.”

Sasuke nodded. “I’ll heal any wounds. Please do not injure the dogs, if possible.”

That night, Naruto wrote the entirety of the fight blow for blow. The account takes up several pages of his sloppy handwriting, but at the end, he is overjoyed to be able to write: we won!

.

His entry for Day Six Hundred and Ninety-Seven is just one line: Urushi  died protecting us from ANBU without a village.

.

It’s on Day Seven Hundred and Fourteen that he got the idea, but dismissed it as ridiculous and impossible.

.

On Day Seven Hundred and Twenty-Nine, he reconsidered the idea, and decided that actually, it was totally feasible and, in fact, a good idea.


	2. sasuke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to ShadowSpellchecker for guessing my plans correctly weeks ago c:

Sasuke sometimes hated his teammates. Sure, they were his People, but that didn’t mean they weren’t a pair of horribly annoying people who were somehow cursed with both excellent and terrible luck. 

 

Case in point: 

 

“So, I had an idea,” Naruto said, drawing each word out one by one.

 

“What kind of idea?” Sakura asked, squinting at him like he was carrying a time bomb. 

 

“It’s not like that time with the squirrels, is it?” Sasuke demanded. 

 

“First of all, no,” Naruto said, pointing at him, “Second of all, it would have worked if you hadn’t killed one. Third of all, we decided to never discuss that again.”

 

Sasuke said nothing, though he distinctly remembered not agreeing to never discuss it again, since Naruto had simply announced that they wouldn’t be. He should have known better than to not get their signed agreement on that. 

 

“Anyway, my idea was-” Naruto continued, and was interrupted by a kunai lodging itself in his shoulder. 

 

Sasuke lunged for his idiot teammate while Sakura and all of her dogs howled in rage and leapt after whoever their attacker was now. He pulled the kunai out smoothly at just the angle it entered, and managed to not make a worse mess of Naruto’s shoulder in the process.

 

“Heal it,” Sasuke said to the Kyuubi, “We have to split up. Three weeks.”

 

“Got it,” Naruto said, grimacing as the wound stitched itself shut. “Be safe. I’ll pass it on to Sakura. See you later!”

 

Sasuke nodded and leapt away, Chika still tucked into the front of his shirt and Bisuke at his heels. 

 

.

 

The moment he got a chance, Sasuke does his hair up into a tight bun like Sakura had taught him, changed into a pretty standard, if ugly, medic’s uniform, and put a surgery mask on. 

 

Chika moved to the top of his backpack and let Sasuke put a genjutsu on her to make her look like an extra bag piled on top. Bisuke grumbled as usual, but still let Sasuke put a genjutsu on him to make him look like a small donkey with a few packs on him. 

 

Sasuke honestly liked being alone, with just his dogs pretending they weren’t dogs. It was peaceful, quiet, and he could hop between towns with no fuss, acting as just a regular wandering ninja dropout turned healer. The only expectations anyone put on him was to heal their wounds and cure their illnesses. 

 

It also gave him time to think about That Night and what didn’t make sense about it. 

 

He never told his teammates, but months ago, when he was off with Akari, finishing his training, two people came into their pop-up clinic they’d established dripping and coughing up blood. Akari had taken the shorter man aside, into a curtained-off space for a more private check-up and to remove him from the rest of their patients in case whatever he had was contagious. 

 

“If you’re going to wait for your friend, stay out of the way, please,” Sasuke said after he was done healing up the numerous kunai wounds in the man’s arms and legs. 

 

“No problem,” the shark-man said. “Hey, quick question, are you gonna rat us out?”

 

Sasuke scowled. “No. I don’t care what your name is or what your friend’s name is. We’re not affiliated with anyone.”

 

He’d gone on to heal the rest of the patients in the tent, plus the handful that trickled in. It had been a particularly busy day for them. He hadn’t caught the details, but there had been an accident with some farming equipment that had injured a little over a dozen farmers. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened to them if he and Akari hadn’t been there at the time. 

 

“Kid,” Akari called over the curtain after he’d ushered the last of the other patients away, “come here. Got something new for you.”

 

And honestly, Sasuke could swear that time stopped when he pulled the curtain aside and saw who, exactly, was sitting on the exam table. 

 

“Akari-sensei,” he’d said very calmly, “Please get away from that man.”

 

“Shut up, Sasuke, you think I don’t know who he is? I already told him I won’t have violence in my tent or he’ll be shit out of luck with whatever is wrong with him.” she’d said. “Now, get over here, keep your weapons put up, and run that exam jutsu I taught you on him.”

 

It was little comfort that That Man seemed as surprised and uncomfortable as Sasuke was with the entire situation. 

 

“Akari-sensei…”

 

She glared up at him over her notes. “Now.”

 

So Sasuke grit his teeth, fired up the exam jutsu, and approached That Man stiffly and with the meanest, angriest glare he could dredge up from the well of betrayal and hurt inside him.

 

“Bedside manner, Sasuke,” Akari chided.

 

“Yes,” Akari-sensei,” Sasuke said through gritted teeth. 

 

He didn’t touch That Man. The exam jutsu worked better when one had skin to skin contact with the patient, but even with Akari’s disapproving glances, he couldn’t bring himself to touch him. 

 

And then the results of the exam jutsu came to him, and he froze.

 

“Is this hereditary?” Sasuke demanded of him. 

 

“Through Father’s line, yes,” That Man replied, his voice quieter than Sasuke remembered. 

 

“Fuck,” Sasuke said, and ran the exam jutsu on himself, focusing very hard on searching for the same thing he’d found in Itachi’s body. 

 

“No, Sasuke, stop,” Itachi said, reaching out but not touching him, “it’s dormant. It won’t affect you unless you do something foolish.”

 

“What the fuck does that mean?”

 

“It’s the Mangekyou,” Itachi said softly.

 

Sasuke stopped. The Mangekyou, the thing that Kakashi had told him he could only get if his teammates, his People, died or were killed by him.

 

“Fitting,” Sasuke spat. 

 

“Bedside manner, Sasuke,” Akari snapped.

 

“Fuck you,” he replied, and started walking away. “I’m not doing this. I’m leaving. Thanks, sensei, but I’m fucking done.”

 

“No, you’re not. Shut up and sit down.”

 

Sasuke shut up and sat down. He crossed his arms, and didn’t bother to disguise his sour expression. 

 

“Here’s the thing,” Akari said. “I used to be ANBU. I was Hawk, Itachi. Sasuke, I was the assigned healer to your brother’s team. I’ve always thought that the massacre was a fucking set up.”

 

Sasuke froze, and past Akari, he saw that so had his brother. 

 

“We all do,” Akari continued, looking directly into Itachi’s eyes. “Your whole team. You had some rough relations with your family, so it all looked legit, sure, to anyone who wasn’t us. We knew you, Itachi. We knew exactly how much you hated killing people. We knew the fucking lengths you went to just to avoid assassinations or unnecessary killing. I remember very clearly the time you chewed out Dove for an entire hour after she’d killed a guard who hadn’t even seen her.”

 

Sasuke looked at his brother’s face. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said his brother looked sheepish at being caught out. 

 

“And you,” Akari said, and Sasuke snapped his attention back to her. “You were seven, but you weren’t an idiot. I’m sure you noticed the difference in the way you were treated before and after. You might have been beloved and adored by all of the girls in your class, but I bet teachers weren’t nice to you before it happened, only after.”

 

And, after Akari had said that, Sasuke remembered that he had, in fact, thought it was very weird that the teachers had gone from politely distant to worriedly caring when he’d gone back to class. 

 

“Alright, that’s enough of that. You, get out of my tent. Take the anti-biotics I gave you. Don’t use those stupid eyes of yours if you can help it.” Akari said. 

 

Sasuke closed his eyes and listened to Itachi’s quiet footsteps as he left the curtained area, gathered his weird shark-man friend, and left. 

 

“Sorry to drop that on you like that,” Akari said once his brother was gone. 

 

“It’s fine,” Sasuke said. “I apologize for cursing at you.”

 

“Forgiven,” Akari replied. “Now, go resort the cabinet and start packing it up. There’s a town a little north of here that’s next on our list. I want to make it there by this time tomorrow.”

 

.

 

Sasuke hadn’t forgiven his brother after that. There was too much left that needed answers, and he still, in his heart, believed that Itachi had killed their clan. He’d spent too long with that as the truth to believe otherwise. 

 

Still, he started to listen to rumors more. On the few occasions he ran into sympathetic Konoha ninja, he’d ask them what they thought happened that night or what their opinion of his brother was, and the pieces began knitting themselves together. 

 

By all accounts, from nearly everyone who had known him, Itachi had been a good kid. Most remembered that he’d had a horrible sweet tooth, which Sasuke also remembered. Others said that he’d had a sense of humor, which they’d clarified was weird for an Uchiha. The one time Sasuke had run into Hana, she’d admitted that she’d had the worst crush on Itachi. 

 

“I’d seen him with you, once,” she’d said reluctantly. “He was just so good to you. I remember being a little envious that he had such a calm and sweet relationship with you, where my relationship with my asshole brother is so… well, what it is. After it happened, a lot of people were surprised he left you alive, but I wasn’t.”

 

He’d also gotten bits and pieces of rumors that Itachi hadn’t willing done it.

 

“I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory,” one man who Sasuke never learned the name of, “but listen, okay? Your clan was powerful, like, really powerful. I mean, everyone knows you need a Sharingan to take down an Uchiha, of course, but uh. Itachi was good, but he was thirteen. There’s no way a thirteen-year-old could take out an entire clan in the time he supposedly had.”

 

“What do you mean?” Sasuke had asked. 

 

“Well, forensics figured it didn’t take longer than an hour, right?” the man had explained. “There was like, a hundred Uchiha. That’s like, an Uchiha and a half per minute, not counting the time it took to go between the houses. It doesn’t make sense!”

 

And it didn’t. The more Sasuke thought about it, the less any of it made sense. Itachi, a thirteen year old, killed a clan that was almost ninety percent shinobi in under an hour. Most of the Uchiha clan had been jonin. It didn’t make any sense. 

 

Sasuke wanted to tell his teammates, but he couldn’t figure out how to say, “Hey, I think there’s something fishy about the way my brother supposedly killed my clan,” especially when he’d spent so long making himself out to be an avenger. 

 

He still wanted to avenge his clan, he reminded himself whenever he caught himself thinking of himself as anything else but an avenger. 

 

Sasuke hadn’t seen his brother since, and hadn’t had a chance to look for him, since he’d been with his team and hadn’t wanted to leave them for anything. 

 

But he was away from them now, and he had a few weeks to spare. 

 

Bisuke snuffled the ground and looked at Sasuke. He had the scent memorized from the bloodied cloth Sasuke had sealed away from the day his brother had come into Akari’s medic tent. 

 

Sasuke waved Bisuke on and followed after him at the sedate pace that the donkey Bisuke was pretending to be would walk at. 

 

.

 

Naruto might have been the sneakiest of his team, but Sasuke wasn’t a slouch, either. Kakashi had made sure that all three of his genin were passable in just about every skill. 

 

In the end, all it took to sneak up on Itachi and his shark-man friend were two of Naruto’s disguise seals, two of Naruto’s new trap/truth seals, a cat collar for Chika, for Bisuke to stay back and watch the camp they’d made a few hundred yards away from Itachi’s camp, and a little bit of humiliation. 

 

“Kitty, kitty, kitty!” Sasuke called desperately. “You dumb cat, where are you?”

 

Sasuke hated acting like a fool, but he wanted information and he had a feeling his brother wouldn’t give it to him without some persuasion. Hence, acting like he’d lost his cat in the middle of the woods. 

 

“Shit, ‘tachi, who the fuck loses a cat in the middle of the woods?” the shark-man said. 

 

“Is there someone out there?” Sasuke called. “Please, I’m travelling and my cat’s crate broke yesterday and she ran off! Will you help me find her?”

 

“Of course,” his brother said, appearing out of seemingly nowhere.

 

Sasuke staggered, like a civilian would to a ninja appearing in front of them so quickly with so little warning. 

 

“Wait, aren’t you that kid who killed the Uchiha clan?” Sasuke asked, taking a few fearful steps backwards. “I’m sorry, I’ll leave you alone, don’t worry about my cat, I’ll find her-!”

 

“It’s complicated,” Itachi said softly. “I will help you find your cat. You have nothing to fear from me.”

 

Sasuke let the fear linger in his expression, which wasn’t difficult, seeing as not all of it was faked just for the act.

 

Itachi finds Chika, disguised as a cat with one of Naruto’s seals, high in a tree and trembling like a leaf. She sinks her new cat claws into Sasuke’s arms when she’s reunited with him, which is absolutely revenge for him sticking her in a tree that high in the air. 

 

“Thank you very much, sir,” Sasuke said. “Please, my camp is nearby. Allow me to give you something as thanks.”

 

“Smells like a trap...” the shark-man, who Sasuke now knows is named Kisame, said. 

 

“Thank you, but that is not necessary,” Itachi said, much more diplomatically. 

 

“Please, I insist,” Sasuke said, remembering one of his more annoyingly grateful patients he’s had in the past. “I was travelling to Shukuba town to go live with my auntie, but also my family sent me with too many supplies for just me and my cat. Please take them off of my hands.”

 

Itachi pulled Kisame aside then for a discussion that a real civilian wouldn’t have been able to overhear, but Sasuke could, of course, hear perfectly. 

 

“We’re out of food.”

 

“This is totally a trap, ‘tachi, just cause he’s a cute kid doesn’t mean you have to help him.”

 

“Again, we’re out of food, out of money for food, and neither of us exactly excel in foraging sufficiently and safely.”

 

“Ugh, fuck, fine, but if this is a trap, I’m going to say I told you so.”

 

Itachi approached him again, with Kisame not far behind, and bowed his head gracefully. “We have discussed it, and we would be grateful for whatever supplies you can spare.”

 

So Sasuke cheerfully led Itachi and Kisame back to his camp, and watched as Bisuke kicked both of them at once with a seal on both sets of feet. They promptly collapsed, and Sasuke took a moment to write down on a scrap of paper exactly what they’d done when the seals were activated. 

 

“Sorry for the wait,” Sasuke said as he finished writing, though he didn’t set his notebook down. “My teammate’s the one who made those seals and he makes us write down the effects when we use new ones.”

 

“I told you so,” Kisame said. 

 

Itachi said nothing. 

 

“Right,” Sasuke said, “You don’t need to know who I am just yet, but I have some questions for you.”

 

“Fuck off,” Kisame said.

 

“Not you,” Sasuke said, and looked at Itachi. 

 

After a long moment, Itachi asked, “What do you want to know?”

 

“What’s your name?” Sasuke asked, picking his pen back up.

 

“Itachi Uchiha.”

 

Sasuke nodded. “What three organizations were you most recently a member of?” 

 

“The Konoha Shinobi Corps, Root, and Akatsuki.”

 

“What did your mother’s apron look like?”

 

Itachi stopped. “How is that relevant?”

 

“Baseline. Answer the question.”

 

“It was yellow,” Itachi said quietly, “It crossed in the back and had no tie.”

 

Sasuke wrote down that the truth-compelling  aspect of the seal seemed to be working, though the victim could put off answering for a while. Naruto would want to know of a flaw like that, Sasuke was sure. 

 

“Tell me what happened the night of September Seventh,” Sasuke said, finally putting his notes aside. “The real story, not the bullshit official version. We all know that no village ever publishes the real truth.”

 

Itachi stared at him for a long moment. “Why do you want to know that?” 

 

Sasuke bared his teeth the way Sakura liked to. “I had a few Uchiha friends, and I want to know who really killed them.”

 

“I only killed my mother and father, and the civilians,” Itachi said, and then stopped speaking. 

 

“Who killed the others?”

 

“He said his name was Madara.” He frowned. “No, he was- He said his name was. What is this seal?”

 

“It forces you to tell the truth, whether you know it to be the truth or not,” Sasuke answered. “Don’t ask me how it works.”

 

Itachi frowned. “So that means that the man who killed our clan was not, in fact, the actual Madara?”

 

Sasuke forced himself to shrug. “Guess so. Who else was involved?”

 

“A man named Danzo gave me the order,” Itachi said. “The other man was a surprise.”

 

Sasuke scowled. He’d never felt comfortable around the man in the few council meetings he’d been forced to go to, but he never would have guessed that he was involved with That Night. 

 

“Is Danzo involved with anything else?” Sasuke asked. 

 

“Yes,” Itachi said. 

 

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “Right, you need a specific question. What other events was Danzo involved in?”

 

Itachi began listing out several incidents and missions that were a mix of things that Sasuke had never heard of and things he had. 

 

“The most recent event,” Itachi said finally, “was the coverup of the assassination of Kakashi Hatake, which he also ordered.”

 

Sasuke closed his eyes. “Fuck.”

 

“Are you just about done?” Kisame demanded. “Get this fuckin’ seal off of me so I can rip you to shreds you dumb fucking-!”

 

“Shut up,” Sasuke said, and peeled off the disguise seal. “Fuck, of course it’s the same guy.”

 

“Sasuke,” Itachi said, his eyes widening just a bit. 

 

He scoffed. “Don’t tell me you didn’t figure it out. I wasn’t being subtle after I had you and Kisame subdued.”

 

Itachi said nothing.

 

Finally, Sasuke asked, “Why did you agree to kill the clan?”

 

“They were planning a coup,” Itachi answered dully. “Even the civilians were involved.”

 

“Even the kids?”

 

“I didn’t kill the children, Madara did.”

 

Sasuke finally sat down on a log and put his head in his hands. 

 

He felt so fucking stupid for just believing what he was told by the village. They’d been taught the histories of other villages and the propaganda they’d pushed and how to see passed it in the academy, and Sasuke had gotten top marks in that lesson just like he had with all the others. He was stupid to believe that Konoha was any different.

 

“Fuck,” he said again, and pressed his face into Chika’s fur. 

 

Chika sniffed at Sasuke’s ear, offering her opinion of what to do. Sasuke scoffed again. She huffed out a quiet bark and hopped from his arms to the ground. 

 

“Don’t give me that,” Sasuke told her. 

 

She turned up her nose and trotted away from him and into Itachi’s motionless lap and took her sweet time finding just the perfect spot to get comfortable.

 

Sasuke stood up and threw his hands up into the air. “Fine! I’ll ask!”

 

“...Ask what?” Kisame asked. 

 

Sasuke crossed his arms and bit out, “My team and I have been preparing to kill the man who had Kakashi-sensei killed. Would you like to help?”

 

“Yes,” Itachi said. 

 

“I don’t want to,” Kisame grumbled. “But I will. Get these fucking seals off of us.”

 

Sasuke laughed bitterly. “No. I might have the truth now, but I don’t trust you, and I haven’t forgiven him. The seals will dissolve in an hour. Bisuke will lead you to the meeting place.”

 

“I will?” Bisuke asked. 

 

Sasuke disappeared without answering.

 

.

 

Sasuke was just a little later than he’d meant to be, and arrived at the cabin to a standoff between Itachi and Kisame and Naruto and Sakura. 

 

“Relax,” Sasuke said to his team. “I told them to meet us here.”

 

“But you want to kill him, last I heard!” Naruto shouted, waving a kunai at Itachi. “What gives you flighty fuckin’ bastard!?”

 

“What gives,” Sasuke said dryly, throwing his notebook at Naruto’s face, “is your truth compelling seals work on people who aren’t us. You’re welcome.”

 

Naruto cheered and threw open the notebook to begin reading. 

 

“Sasuke, you’re sure?” Sakura asked, her giant battleaxe still at the ready. “Like, really sure?”

 

He nodded. 

 

Sakura gave Itachi one last dirty look before resealing her axe into her glove. “Alright. I trust you, Sasuke.”

 

“So, what’s the plan?” Kisame drawled. “Are we just gonna storm Konoha and kill this Danzo bastard or what?”

 

“What?” Sakura asked. 

 

Kisame snorted. “You know, the guy who had your teacher and the Uchihas and gods know how many other people killed? What’s the plan there?”

 

“Danzo did it,” Sakura said, standing very, very still. 

 

“Shit,” Sasuke said, and grabbed Naruto’s arm to pull him out of range of whatever reaction Sakura was about to have. 

 

Thankfully, she just let out a roaring scream and punched the ground away from the cabin instead of towards the cabin. Itachi and Kisame weren’t quite as lucky, since they were closer to her than Sasuke and Naruto were, and caught an aftershock that startled Itachi enough to knock him over. 

 

Sasuke frowned. Itachi was strong enough and fast enough that Sakura’s scream should have been plenty of warning to brace himself. 

 

“Shit, you okay, ‘tachi?” Kisame asked, kneeling down next to him. 

 

Itachi coughed into his hand. “I’m fine, I was just surprised.”

 

“Liar,” Sasuke said, and stepped forward to pull his hand out. As he expected, there was a small splatter of blood in his brother’s palm. “Hold still.”

 

Itachi held still as Sasuke fired up the exam jutsu and then healed what he could of the damage to Itachi’s lungs and muscles. 

 

“Stop using the Mangekyou,” Sasuke ordered as he pulled his hand away. “You don’t get to die before I forgive you.”

 

Itachi stared at him. “Before you…?”

 

“Anyway,” Sasuke said loudly, “Naruto, you had a plan, before we left. What was it?”

 

“Huh?” Naruto said. “Oh, the plan I had. Right. Well, it’s not about taking out whoever- oh, right, we have a name, now, it’s no about taking out Danzo. It’s an idea for something that will give us the resources to take out Danzo and like, live afterwards, cause he’s stupid powerful, y’know, and I’ve got plans for after we kill him and-!”

 

“Focus,” Sasuke said. 

 

Naruto shook his head. “Right. So, remember how my mom and I guess my clan? Was from Uzushiogakure? Well, it’s just like, empty land right now. It’s sealed up real good so that only people with Uzumaki blood can get in, yknow, but uh, they were hunted down, mostly. So there’s just me and maybe a few others scattered around. And, I know Yagura and he owes me a favor, right? So like, I was thinking...”

 

“Naruto,” Sakura said heavily, “The point, please, sometime this year?”

 

“Sorry, sorry! Okay, one sentence here we go: Uzushiogakure and the surrounding islands are empty, I’m the only one who can get in, the Mizukage owes me a favor, and I think it would me a good idea to rebuild it and make a shinobi village not built on lying to everyone.”

 

“Is that even possible?” Kisame asked, sounding more intrigued than disapproving. 

 

Naruto shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know, really. But I think it’s worth a try. And besides, if we can get a village up and running, even if we’re going to be considered a really, really minor country, that will give us the political power to push Danzo out of power and push someone we like into it.”

 

“Who?” Itachi asked. 

 

“Well, I mean…” Naruto scratched his head. “There’s not a whole lot of people who are options, y’know. It has to be someone who was part of the lineage, right? Someone who was taught by a Hokage. Danzo was part of the Second’s genin team, with the Third. The Fourth was Jiraya’s student, who was the Third’s student.”

 

“The only options are us or one of the sanin,” Sasuke said. 

 

“Yeah, pretty much.”

 

“Not Orochimaru, I should hope,” Itachi said. 

 

“Absolutely not,” Sakura replied. “Not after that freak tried to bite Sasuke with some sort of seal during our chuunin exam.”

 

“Not Jiraiya, either,” Naruto added. “He’d make a shit Hokage. So would you, Sasuke, and you, Sakura. Which means…”

 

“You want us to find Tsunade,” Sasuke said flatly. 

 

“And then somehow convince her to become Hokage?” Sakura added, sounding as incredulous as Sasuke felt. “She’s practically a missing-nin herself. The only reason she wasn’t properly declared one was because she’s a fucking Senju.”

 

Naruto spread his hands and grinned. “Exactly. She’s the perfect canidate.”

 

“That’s all well and good,” Kisame interrupted, “But first you have to figure out this whole ‘reviving Uzushio’ business.”

 

“To Kirigakure, then,” Naruto announced, pointing into distance. 

 

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “Can we eat first? Idiot.”

 

Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and sat down to help Sasuke start a fire and prepare dinner. 

 

Sasuke wasn’t quite ready to forgive his brother, yet. But, as the old saying goes, the enemy of your enemy is your friend. And Danzo, if Sasuke had read his brother right, was absolutely Itachi’s enemy. 


	3. sakura

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy thanksgiving, yall!!! I'm so very behind on NaNo, and since I have today off I thought I'd try to catch up a little. Hopefully, I'll be on track to finish soon, but remember that none of these are beta'd, so they're probably a mess lmao

She had missed her boys. It had been weeks since she'd seen them-- they'd had to split up for safety, since they were annoyingly noticeable together-- and she hated being away from them.

 

Sasuke traveled alone the easiest. He had his two dogs, sure, which is suspicious to any Konoha ninja who might see him, but he's got dark hair and dark eyes like a regular civilian, and as long as he doesn't wear the Uchiha fan on his clothes, he just looks like a normal person, going about his day. Doubly so since he’d grown his hair out and started disguising Chika and Bisuke as various not-dog things and creatures.

 

Naruto had an easy time travelling alone, too, and could blend in with any crowd. Sakura knew it was his seals, but she still wasn't sure how he was able to disguise himself so completely thoroughly that he could talk to an ANBU and not get pegged as a shinobi. His dogs were more conspicuous-- Bull was the size of a pony, Shiba had that weird mohawk, and Hotaru had a very distinct personality, but they were also easier to disguise as other animals, Bull especially. He didn't mind being turned into a pack mule, if only because he practically already was one. 

 

Sakura, though? Sakura hated, absolutely  _ hated _ travelling alone. Her hair was pink, for crying out loud! She couldn’t blend in anywhere with her damn hair, and she was still too proud of it to dye it for fear of damaging it irreparably. Which meant she and her dogs were stuck in the wilderness, hunting for their own food, sleeping in trees, and, worst of all, not able to shower for the three weeks it took to meet back up with her boys.

 

"This wouldn't be a problem," she had growled to Akino, "If the idiot had bothered to give me any of his disguise seals. But no! No, he was too busy stuffing his face with bad quality ramen, wasn't he?"

 

"And, you know," Akino said wryly, "practicing your tandem taijutsu."

 

Sakura grumbled. Akino was right, of course, but she was still bitter that she was stuck in the wild because Naruto hadn't thought to restock her disguise seals before they'd nearly been busted by an ANBU squad and had to bolt. 

 

It had been years since she'd felt the need to worry about her boys. She did anyway, sometimes, and sometimes she couldn't get the imagined image of Sasuke or Naruto superimposed over her memory of Kakashi's corpse out of her head until she could see them again. 

 

"So, I have an idea,” Naruto had said before he was interrupted by a kunai in his shoulder. 

 

She’d raged and lashed out at some of the ANBU with the blank masks, but had heard Naruto’s order to run and meet back up in three weeks, so she’d ran. 

 

There was only one place that they ever met back up at when they had to split up like this, and that was the cabin. Sakura knew she could make it there in just a few days, but three weeks meant three weeks, to deter trackers. 

 

Sakura was horribly curious about Naruto's plan. All of his plans were ridiculous, but most of them were good, solid plans. She tried very hard to not expect anything from him, because he never followed any sort of logic that made sense until after he'd explained it. 

 

It took her exactly twenty days to make it to the cabin, which was a tiny half-destroyed log cabin on the border of Fire Country and River Country. It sat in the middle of a swamp that somehow didn't smell absolutely awful, and is surrounded by frogs that went silent whenever something came within a hundred feet of them.

 

"Jeez, Sakura," Naruto said from the doorway that hadn't had a door since before they'd found the place, "Took you long enough! I was a little worried, y'know?"

 

"You're going to make me a hundred disguise seals," Sakura said, pointing at him threateningly. "Now move, I'm taking a bath and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

 

Naruto stepped aside, promising he'd write up as many as he could while she was bathing. 

 

He did so, and pretty much immediately after she’d stuffed the dried and finished seals into her pack, she pulled Naruto and all of the dogs onto the lumpy, smelly mattress that Naruto had, thankfully, covered with both of their sleeping bags and fell asleep. 

 

The next day, she felt a lot less irritable because Naruto had gotten up early and made some food that wasn’t ramen for her  _ and  _ had finished out another two dozen disguise seals for her. 

 

“Sasuke’s going to be late,” Naruto grumbled. 

 

Sakura shrugged. “Yeah, but he won’t be too late. He promised.”

 

It wasn’t Sasuke that showed up to their cabin next, though. It was his brother and an actual shark-man, who claimed he sent them. 

 

“What did you do to Bisuke!?” Naruto demanded. “He’d never leave Sasuke!”

 

“He told Bisuke-kun to show us the way here,” Sasuke’s brother said calmly. “We merely followed. And fed him.”

 

“They did, Naruto, relax,” Bisuke insisted. 

 

“I don’t believe you,” Sakura said, her massive battleaxe unsealed and at the ready. “So you’re going to sit pretty and not move a muscle until Sasuke gets here.”

 

It was an agonizing hour until Sasuke arrived, and when he did, he delivered the most disappointingly anti-climatic line she’d ever heard from him. 

 

“Relax,” he told them, “I  told them to meet us here.”

 

Then Naruto told them his plan, and she couldn’t help but think, ‘well, this might as well happen.’

 

.

 

Sakura stood, tense, and forced herself to keep an easygoing expression on her face while Naruto talked one of the most dangerous men on the entire continent into just giving them hundreds of acres of viable land and hundreds more of open sea. She was ready to give the order to run at any moment, even though it somehow sounded like Naruto was winning the discussion with the Mizukaze and his council. 

 

Sasuke was still at the cabin, much to Sakura's displeasure. Sure, he was the least diplomatic of the three of them, but she'd always felt safer when she could see her boys than when she couldn't.

 

"Yeah, well, I figure, you can't actually get into what's left of the city anymore," Naruto said as though he was telling Sakura some intricacies of sealing that she wasn't quite going to understand but would have to accept as fact, "and it seems real dumb to just let it rot, y'know? Plus, the nearby islands are pretty much worthless piles of sand, which is good for training, but not much else. Obviously, we'll be happy to sign an alliance with you, though we are looking to be our own country, like Grass Country or Sound County."

 

"Sound Country," the Mizukage said somberly, "is in an alliance with the two nearby smaller Countries, and Grass Country is an alliance with Rock Country. There is precedence, but I still don't see what's in it for Water Country."

 

"Ah, see," Naruto said, pretending at bashful. Sakura was sure that only she and Sasuke could tell it wasn't genuine. "I didn't want to assume, of course, but I thought... Well, I was going to make an offer to take any problematic shinobi off of your hands. Oh, don't give me that look, I know every village has shinobi that they'd rather be rid of. Hell, Konoha killed our teacher because he wasn't teaching the three of us- our third isn't with us at the moment- the way they wanted him to. Last I heard there was still some old guard in Sand Country that were making nuisances of themselves for Gaara, and-"

 

Sakura closed her eyes briefly, both from the pain of the memory and the utter exasperation she felt at Naruto just spilling a secret like that to someone who might be an enemy if this all went down badly. 

 

But then the Mizukage leaned forward and places his elbows on the desk in front of him. "Explain that."

 

"Hm?" Naruto asked, stopping his ramble. "Sand's Old Guard? Well, they kind of liked how Sunagakure was doing things, and don't really like any of Gaara's changes to-"

 

"No," the Mizukage said, "about your teacher."

 

"Oh," Naruto said, and looked a little disquieted he turned just so to Sakura, and when she saw the apology hidden beneath the faux discomfort, she sighed deeply.

 

"Kakashi-sensei took us in," Sakura said, speaking for the first time. "He gave us our dogs, and the training we needed to become strong. He wasn't supposed to, we think. We think that the Konohagakure council expected him to... churn out a new coming of the Sannin, or something, and not make us something completely new. We came home one day, and his throat was slit."

 

"I see," said the Mizukage. "I'm sorry for your loss."

 

Sakura nodded and fell silent once more. It still hurt to think about Kakashi, but it wasn't as painful as it had been the first year. She could talk about him again, at least. 

 

The Mizukage stood suddenly, and Sakura nearly drew a kunai.

 

"I wish to speak privately with my council," he said, and waved to one of his ANBU. "My guard will escort you to a nearby inn. I will send for you in the morning, after I have made my decision."

 

Naruto bowed lowly. "Thank you for your time, Yagura-san."

 

The Mizukage bowed his head, a clear dismissal, and Sakura began following the ANBU. They didn't stop walking at a brisk but reasonable pace until they reached an inn about two blocks from the Mizukage's building. They came to an agreement without speaking to the woman behind the counter, and she and Naruto were given a room with two twin beds.

 

Naruto flopped face first into one of them the second they were inside. "Sasuke's going to be pissed he missed all of that."

 

"No he won't be," Sakura argued. "He hates talking in general, let alone to people he has to be respectful towards. He's going to be glad he got to sit around reading medical texts and pretend he hasn’t forgiven his stupid brother  instead of interacting with other humans."

 

Naruto rolled over, laughing. "Oh, yeah, you're right. Say, you think I did okay? Think he'll go for it?"

 

Sakura rolled her eyes and pulled off her shoes. "Honestly? I really don't know. I'll be happy to make it out of Kiri alive, honestly, regardless of what he decides. Uhei, you're on first watch."

 

.

 

The next morning, they wake and putter around their room for several hours before they're called back to the Mizukage's office. 

 

“I will agree to give you some of the land that used to belong to Uzushiogakure,” the Mizukage said, “On the condition that you allow a select few of my loyal shinobi into your village to ensure your loyalty to the alliance treaty I will sign. I will not allow you to recruit shinobi from my village, but if they choose to shift allegiances to yours, I will not have them hunted down. Is this an amenable agreement?”

 

Sakura felt her jaw loosen a little in surprise. What the hell did Naruto do when he’d first met this guy to convince the fucking Mizukage to just give them so much land? And let them just rebuild a village that his village had destroyed? 

 

“Oh, absolutely, yes!” Naruto said, grinning. “Thank you very much, Yagura-san! I do hope we won’t disappoint you.”

 

“I don’t imagine you will,” the Mizukage said. “And please, write more. Your view of the world is fascinating, and I look forward to your letters.”

 

“I will,” Naruto promised. 

 

The Mizukage nodded and then waved to an ANBU. “I will have the agreement written up shortly. You are free to visit my village as you please until then.”

 

Sakura waited until they were back in their hotel room for the night to say, “I can’t believe that worked. What the hell did you do for this guy?”

 

“Oh, y’know, I just broke some weird genjutsu he had on him,” Naruto said idly, rummaging through the goodies he’d bought in the market. “It was a really strong one, but not strong enough to resist my release seals. Good thing he didn’t know those were still in development, though, cause they could have, uh, heh, wiped his brain and turned him into a vegetable.”

 

Sakura groaned and put her head in her hands. 

 

“Hey, hey, don’t be like that!” Naruto protested. “It worked, didn’t it!?”

 

“I wonder how you’re still alive, sometimes,” Sakura said. 

 

.

 

Sakura didn’t bother to stay with Naruto during all of the discussions. Most of it seemed arbitrary to her, and if he needed her to answer a question, he’d just send a clone to ask and she’d pop it to send the answer back to him. 

 

Instead, she wandered the streets and did some pre-recruiting. Not that she’d ever call it that, of course, but she did spread the word that the Mizukage was allowing some rogue shinobi to revive Uzushiogakure. She also quietly added to those who looked like good candidates, that the Mizukage wasn’t going to allow Mist shinobi to just shift alliances, but that he wouldn’t have them hunted down if they did. 

 

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” a few asked her. 

 

“One of who?” she’d reply. 

 

“The rogues rebuilding Uzushio,” they’d answer. “You sure know a lot if you aren’t. How are you going to recruit anyone?”

 

Sakura would then bite back a grin and tell them all of the benefits they were absolutely sure they could give and nothing more. They were good benefits, but Naruto had told her to undersell so they could overdeliver later. 

 

“Trust me,” Naruto told her, confident as she’d ever seen him. “All it’ll take is a few risk-takers to join up at first, and then when they tell others about how they got so much more than we said they would, we’ll get tons more.”

 

“If you say so,” Sakura had replied, but did as he said. 

 

So far, she’d only had three Mist shinobi swear they’d change allegiances, which Sakura rather thought was a lot for the week and a half that she was allowed to wander the village. It kind of said a lot about Kirigakure as a whole, if she was honest. 

 

Still, many more insisted that Kirigakure was improving exponentially from how it had been before the Mizukage came back a few months ago totally different. 

 

“That’s good, though!” Sakura told those ones. “It means we’re making an alliance with people we can trust.”

 

Naruto had begged her to not start any fights, so she hadn’t, even when she’d overheard derogatory things about her hair and her stature and one particularly weird comment about how she was too reliant on others and that she’d never really make it as a kunoichi until she could defeat a dozen men alone. 

 

She’d wanted very, very badly to start a fight with that man, but she’d simply smiled at him and asked him who, exactly, he thought was the boss of her team. 

 

“Obviously the one in talks with the Mizukage,” he’d replied, rolling his eyes. 

 

“Mm,” Sakura said, biting back a horribly rude response. “No, Naruto’s just good at negotiating, so I let him take care of that for me.”

 

And then she’d left, ignoring the man’s spluttering and smiling at the onlookers that were either giggling or holding back laughter. 

 

She’d then gone on to stock up on supplies while she continued spreading the word, because Naruto went through paper like candy and Sasuke was always looking for more ingredients to shove into his medicine pouch. By the end of her time in Kiri, she had accumulated enough uncommon ingredients to probably make Sasuke actually smile and enough paper for Naruto to make him possibly shriek with joy. 

 

On her last day, though, a woman with a tiny stall beckoned her over. Sakura knew a gossiper when she saw one, and happily approached.

 

“Hello, young lady,” the woman said to her.

 

“Hello, ma’am,” Sakura replied. 

 

“Ah, a respectful child,” the woman said, smiling and nodding happily. “Such a rare occurrence here, these days. Please, take this.”

 

Sakura looked at what the woman was offering, and saw a bundle of beautiful white and blue silk. She picked it up to see exactly what it was, and gasped. 

 

Not only was it a beautiful white silk with stylized waves along the hem, stitched into the neckline was a seal that she’d seen Naruto try and fail to recreate: a seal that, essentially, turned anything it was on into impenetrable armor. It was an extremely difficult seal, she understood from Naruto’s constant cursing, and required both perfect precision and horrible amounts of chakra to power the seal endlessly.

 

“Ma’am, I can’t accept this,” she said, and pressed it back into the old woman’s hands. “It’s beautiful, and I appreciate it, but it’s just too much.”

 

“Nonsense,” the old woman said, and pressed the silk back into Sakura’s hands. “I’m an old woman, what use do I have for it? But I’ve seen you this past week, and I’ve seen that young man with you. I used to be a jonin, you know! I know who you are, and I like what you’re doing. Take this, I insist.”

 

Sakura helplessly let the woman shove the silk into her hands. “Thank you. Please, how can I repay you for this?”

 

The old woman laughed. “Build me a nice house in your new village and find me a comfortable chair, dear, if you must repay me.”

 

Sakura nodded and said, “Come to our village when we open our gates, and I’ll ensure you have your choice of houses and chairs, ma’am.”

 

The old woman laughed. “I’ll hold you to that, dear. Now, run along and keep pretending you aren’t recruiting. And wear that! I didn’t give it to you for you to hide it away somewhere as a keepsake, you understand me?”

 

Sakura dutifully and happily swung the kimono top over her regular clothes and did as the old woman said. 

 

.

 

The night after she’d gotten the kimono top, she’d shown Naruto the seal and he’d shrieked and begged to study it. She’d made him swear he would only look and not ever, ever try to tamper with it. 

 

.

 

A week and a half later, Naruto and the Mizukage, who insisted that Sakura call him Yagura, finished bickering over wording and signed all of the agreements, and they were finally allowed to leave the village entirely. 

 

Sakura was glad to be on the way back to Sasuke. She hadn’t been able to stop wondering if he and his crazy brother had killed each other. Or if Kisame had snapped and killed them both. Or betrayed them for the money. Or- 

 

She was worried, okay?

 

“You think Sasuke snapped and killed his brother?” Naruto asked when they were just a few miles away from the cabin. 

 

“I hope not,” Sakura replied. 

 

To her surprise, when they arrived at the cabin, Chika and Bisuke were in the front yard, playing what looked like Capture the Flag with about half a dozen crows, Sasuke and Itachi were both reading quietly on the still-stable half of the front porch, and Kisame seemed to be playing referee to the game. 

 

“Well, that’s promising,” Naruto mumbled. 

 

“Sure is,” Sakura replied, then said, louder, “So Naruto managed the impossible once more!”

 

“Really?” Sasuke said, lifting his head from his textbook, “He convinced the worst Mizukage in the history of Kirigakure to just give us land?”

 

Sakura shrugged and leaned carefully on the railing in front of him. “You know how he is. And honestly? The guy was pretty formal, but he didn’t seem evil or anything. Naruto said something about breaking a genjutsu with one of his release seals.”

 

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. “You mean the ones that were turning squirrels into vegetables during testing?” 

 

“That’s the one.”

 

“Hey, don’t talk about me like I’m not here, y’know!” Naruto said waving his arms wildly. “Aren’t you, like, impressed or pleased or anything that I got us a whole fuckin’ village, you bastard? We’re gonna be fuckin’ Kages!”

 

Sakura startled. “We?”

 

Naruto grinned widely. “Yeah! See, see, I was thinking. You know what the problem with most villages is, right? That it’s just the one guy running it. Sure, the Kages delegate some things, they’ve gotta, but like. They have to approve everything! Which, like, goes one of two ways: either they’re total dictators and shit get rough for their people…”

 

“...Or things slip through the cracks because nobody can actually pay attention to that many things all at once,” Sakura finished. 

 

“Right!” Naruto beamed. “So, I thought some more, and I thought that, hey, if you can place a whole team as the Kages of a village, like a good team that was really synced up, y’know, there would be less room for shit to go bad, cause there wouldn’t be just the one person making all of the decisions and also there would be more people to look over all of the things happening, y’know? And since teams like, almost never betray each other, there’s not really a worry about one or two of the three to throw a coup.”

 

“Checks and balances,” Sasuke said. 

 

Sakura looked at him, frowning. “What does that mean?”

 

“It’s an old tradition of the Uchiha,” Itachi said. “Before we were part of a village, the Uchiha had three branches, each keeping the others honest. It was referred to as checks and balances, because each of the three branches would keep a check on the other two, and the power was balanced evenly across the clan.”

 

“It didn’t work as intended, though,” Sasuke said dryly.

 

Itachi nodded. “This is true. But it was better than many systems other clans had, at the time.”

 

“I don’t think there’s ever been a village that had more than one Kage at a time, before,” Sakura said, “I don’t know how many people are going to like that we’re doing that.”

 

“Ah, see, that’s the thing,” Naruto said, “I think they’re going to think that we’re nuts and that it’s going to fall apart after us. We might be a threat, but who’s to say the next Kage team is going to be as good as us, y’know? Even Yagura thought it was a dumb idea, but he said he trusts me enough to make it work.”

 

“That still doesn’t account for another village trying to take us out,” Sasuke said. “The three of us are powerful, but not enough so to fight a war, and we’re going to have to, to get rid of Danzo.”

 

Itachi said, “I’m perfectly capable of-”

 

“Shut up, you’re ill,” Sasuke snapped. 

 

“Well,” Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head, “That’s the thing. We’re going to have to keep quiet until we’ve gotten enough jonin to really be a force to reckon with. Our alliance with Water will keep us safe while we’re building, and I think we’ll be able to make a few more alliances in the next year or two, but…”

 

“This is a long con,” Sakura said. 

 

Naruto nodded, grimacing. “Yeah, it’s a real long con.”

 

Sakura took a deep breath. A large part of her just wanted to storm Konoha and put her axe in Danzo’s skull  _ right now,  _ damn the consequences. It was something she idly fantasized about in quiet moments. She knew exactly what it would look like, and it was almost soothing to picture Danzo’s face over the people she’d actually already had to kill like that. 

 

A more logical part of her knew that she wouldn’t survive that, and that her boys wouldn’t let her go alone, and that her boys wouldn’t survive that, either. She couldn’t bear to be the reason her boys died. 

 

“Okay,” she said finally. “Let’s do this.”


	4. naruto

Naruto liked his plan. It was simple, and Kakashi-sensei had always said that simple plans are the best plans because it’s easier to change things when shit hits the fan. Which isn’t to say that Naruto actually anticipated any shit hitting any fan, but he also did not  _ not  _ anticipate shit hitting a fan somewhere along the line. 

 

“Step one,” he told his team and Sasuke’s brother and Sasuke’s brother’s friend when they were safely on a hired boat out to the ruins of Uzushiogakure, “is to touch base and see what we have to work with.”

 

He waited for them all to nod, and then he added, “Step two has two parts, actually. Part one: collect the allies that aren’t safe where they are. That means Tenzo and Sasuke’s medic teacher.”

 

“Akari,” Sasuke said. “I know where she is.”

 

“Good,” Naruto said, beaming. “Step two, part two is we gotta recruit civilians who can do the things we cant, like, y’know, architects and fishers and farmers and blacksmiths and whatever. None of us can do any of that shit, so we need people who can.”

 

“Obviously,” Sakura said, rolling her eyes. “What’s step three?”

 

Naruto shrugged. “Rebuild Uzushio, I guess. Get used to it being home. I don’t think it’s too good of an idea to plan ahead that far, just yet.”

 

“I should find our allies,” Sasuke said. “I already know where Akari is, and she’ll know where and who we need to collect first.”

 

Naruto nodded. “Sounds good! Sakura, I know you hate to hear this, but…”

 

“You want me to recruit civilians,” Sakura deadpanned. “Because I’m cute and look trustworthy but I’m also strong enough to protect them as I escort them back to Uzushio.”

 

Naruto laughed, because she just took the words directly out of his mouth. “Yeah, pretty much. And I figure you know who I want as our main architect, if you can convince him, yeah?”

 

“Tazuna?” Sakura wrinkled her nose. “I mostly remember him being a drunk. Are you sure you want him?”

 

Naruto protested, “Hey, which of us has been by to see him since that mission? He’s not a drunk normally, and that bridge is killer and I know for a fact he can build houses and shit ‘cause he was when I last saw him. Trust me, Sakura-chan!”

 

“Oh, fine,” Sakura grumbled. 

 

“What should Kisame and I do?” Sasuke’s brother asked. 

 

“You’re going to sit fucking tight and let your body rest,” Sasuke snarled, pointing at his brother viciously. “And Kisame’s going to make sure you don’t do anything stupid or against my medical orders.”

 

Sasuke’s brother bowed his head just a bit, and Naruto kind of felt bad for him. He’d make sure he found something to occupy him, ‘cause he knew that being bored and cooped up wasn’t any fun. 

 

.

 

They arrived at the island, and the boatman scoffed at them, but waited patiently for them to try the tall, sealed gate at the end of the harbor. 

 

“Plenty have tried,” he said when they disembarked. “None of ‘em have succeeded. I’ll believe you’re an Uzumaki when I see it, kid.”

 

“Well, you’ll see it,” Naruto had replied, and turned away from the boatman. 

 

Then he’d seen the fucking seal on the gate and nearly cried. It was so complicated! So big! So unlike anything Naruto had ever, ever seen! He honestly had no idea how the fuck he was going to crack it.

 

“This is going to be so much fucking fun,” Naruto said, and meant it. 

 

“Great,” Sakura said as Naruto started pulling out reference books and scrap paper, “this is going to take a while, isn’t it?”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Naruto replied, and then tuned everything out and let his mind narrow until the only thing he was thinking of was this giant seal.

 

He started by noting what components were where, and then by how they connected. Safety, refuge, revenge, power, home, repel, lock. A seven point seal. Five point seals were the most complicated Naruto had ever seen a seal get to. Most people didn’t bother with more than three points! It made sense, the more Naruto picked at the puzzle, that this thing would be a seven-point seal, though. 

 

Twenty-one lines of contact! Ridiculous! And they all went through the circle in the center, which meant that unlocking this huge fucker needed something applied. Naruto figured it had to be blood, but when he cut his hand and smacked it into the circle, it didn’t do anything but fade away immediately. So he went back to his notes and his books and tried to figure out what else could possibly work to unlock this monstrosity. 

 

It took him longer than he liked to realize it had to be chakra. In his defence, only smaller one and three point seals used chakras as activators, generally. Most five point seals needed something extra, like blood or saliva or a plant or bones or anything. Chakra, when it came to seals, was a poor choice of activator for seals unless they were meant to be able to be activated by anyone. Naruto had never, ever seen a lock seal that needed chakra to activate. 

 

Then Naruto remembered one of the most disappointing nights of his life, and was struck with how lucky he was that Kakashi’s white chakra had been rejected from his system. 

 

Sasuke and Sakura had made a camp at some point, on the sand just to the side of the gate, and had invited the boatman to share their fire. Naruto made his way over, and sat down next to Sasuke and stole his fish. 

 

“Hey,” Sasuke said, but didn’t try to take it back. “Figured it out?”

 

“Looks more like he gave up,” the boatman said. 

 

Sakura snorted loudly and covered her mouth, probably to prevent her food from flying out. “Naruto? Give up? That’s hilarious. Spill, Naruto.”

 

“Okay, so,” he said after he’d scarfed down Sasuke’s fish and started in on another, “it needs chakra to unlock it. Uzumaki chakra.”

 

Sakura paused and tilted her head. “Sensei said that certain chakra couldn’t be converted to white chakra. Is that why…?”

 

Naruto nodded. “So yeah, I’m about to do something probably stupid and feed that big motherfucker chakra until it breaks, but first I want to eat.”

 

Sasuke’s brother frowned at him. “That sounds dangerous. Are you sure this is wise?”

 

“Yup,” Naruto said, not bothering to finish his bite before he answered. “It just might not feel super great and a certain furry friend of mine might or might not try to take advantage. You know how it is.”

 

Sasuke nodded. “Clear out?”

 

“Nah, I don’t think it’s that big of a danger,” Naruto replied. “He’ll lash out at me before he can lash out at you guys.”

 

.

 

In the end, Kurama did not, in fact, lash out at anyone. Naruto placed one hand on the gate, channeled what he thought was a pretty small amount, and then more chakra than he thought he even had was forcibly pulled through him and into the seal. 

 

Then Naruto woke up to Sasuke hovering over him with trembling hands and Hotaru frantically licking at his face. 

 

“Ouch,” Naruto mumbled. 

 

“He’s fine!” Sasuke shouted, then thumped Naruto twice in the chest. “You know I hate when you do shit like that.”

 

“Sorry,” Naruto said. “Did it work?”

 

Sasuke nodded and helped him to sit up. 

 

Sakura, Itachi, and Kisame were standing just outside of the gate, looking inside. Naruto didn’t blame them for wanting to look at the city instead of him. 

 

He could see the white stone and the red tile roofs and fragments of shredded banners in faded colors that were once bright and varied. Most of the windows he could see were shattered, but they were clearly once intricate stained glass works of art. 

 

“Help me up, I want to see more,” Naruto demanded. 

 

Sasuke hauled him up and slung one of Naruto’s arms over his shoulders and walked him, slower than Naruto liked, to the gate. 

 

“Here,” Sakura said, and took most of his weight from Sasuke. 

 

“Hey, hey, we should all like, go in together,” Naruto said, grabbing onto Sasuke to keep him from pulling away. “C’mon, it’ll be, like, symbolic, y’know? C’mon, Sasuke, don’t be a sourpuss.”

 

“Fine,” Sasuke said, and leaned back into Naruto. 

 

Naruto grinned and pretended he was grinning at the city and not at the fact that he’d totally figured out who Sasuke said he was in love with that time they got drunk together. Sure, it took him way too long to realize that, duh, of course it was him and Sakura because who else could it be, but he’d gotten there eventually. Sasuke could continue to think that neither he nor Sakura knew, because that made teasing him fun. 

 

Still, Naruto meant it when he said it would be symbolic. He could perfectly imagine small children being told the story of the Reclaiming of Uzushiogakure, how the Three Kage stepped through the gates first, as one.

 

.

 

Of course, once they were done marvelling at what was left of the city, they had to tally up how much damage they’d seen and decide what to take care of first.

 

“The buildings seem to mostly be intact,” Sakura said as she gently put Naruto on a bench that had somehow survived. “Some damage to the inside structure, but the outsides seem stable. I say we patch up what we can, first, and then worry about building more.”

 

“Yeah, that looks like the best idea,” Naruto agreed. Sakura had mostly carried him around, since she was very strong and Sasuke could only handle so much physical contact at once.

 

“I’m not leaving until your chakra levels are normal,” Sasuke said. “Our allies can wait.”

 

“You know I’ll be fine by tomorrow!” Naruto protested. “And it’s not like I was just gonna make you guys leave like, right now! Jeez!”

 

Kisame rounded the corner, spotted them, and perked up. “Hey, you lot! Itachi and I found the old kage tower and it’s got some seal on the door.”

 

Naruto let out a whine. “Please don’t need chakra, please don’t need chakra, please don’t need chakra…”

 

“If it needs chakra, it can fucking wait,” Sasuke said, but hauled him back up regardless.

 

It was, thankfully, a short walk, and Sasuke inelegantly dropped Naruto to the ground in front of the seal for him to examine. 

 

“Oh, that’s just a basic alarm seal,” Naruto said immediately after he finished complaining to Sasuke about his rude drop. “It yells for like- hold on, let me look again- twenty minutes after it’s tampered with and then it shuts up. You can go ahead and pull it.”

 

“Are you certain?” Itachi asked. “This city was renowned for its seal masters, and I should hate for any of us to get injured by a trap.”

 

Sasuke rolled his eyes and yanked the seal off of the door. Naruto grinned at Itachi, kind of smugly if he was honest, as a repetitive bell-like ringing echoed in the dusk around them and nothing else. Itachi nodded, conceding the point. 

 

“I’m going in,” Sakura shouted. 

 

Naruto shouted back, “Watch for traps!”

 

Sakura raised her middle finger and crept inside the building, her pack of dogs not far behind her. Naruto wanted to chew on his nails anxiously, but he couldn’t keep his arm lifted for more than a minute. He kind of regretted making fun of Kakashi-sensei when he’d gotten chakra exhaustion way back during their first C-rank. It really sucked worse than he’d ever expected it to.

 

Sakura returned just a few minutes after the ringing stopped with a very disgruntled expression and pointed behind her. 

 

“There’s a few, uh, dessicated corpses,” she said. “I think one’s their kage, based on the robes, and they’re all surrounding a like, miniature version of the seal that was on the gate.”

 

“Oh,” Naruto said, feeling a weight descending upon him. He’d been so excited about reviving the city that he hadn’t really thought about the people that had died for it the first time. “That was, uh, that was probably a remote link to activate the seal, if I had to guess.”

 

Sasuke stood up. “I’m going to find a library. They deserve the burial rites of their culture.”

 

“May I join you?” Itachi asked. 

 

Sasuke nodded jerkily, and Itachi slowly rose from his seated position at the base of the tower and motioned for Sasuke to lead. 

 

Kisame pointed to a nearby building. “We think that that’s the kage’s house, based on the number of rooms and the remains of some pretty wicked-looking security. Let’s get your idiot to bed so he can sleep off that exhaustion.”

 

“Sounds good,” Sakura said and lifted Naruto unceremoniously once more. 

 

.

 

Naruto knew he must have fallen asleep at some point, though he didn’t remember when, because when he woke back up, the sun was high in the sky and he was sweating under his bomber jacket. 

 

He yanked it off and fanned his face. He certainly felt more energetic, but his brain was a bit quieter than usual. He wondered if this is how Sakura and Sasuke’s brains felt. Was chakra levels related to mental noise? Probably not, he realized, since he’d heard of civilians having the same brain nonsense he had, and they didn’t have chakra. 

 

“Oh, you’re awake,” Uhei said from the foot of his bed. “How you feeling? I’ll go tell Sakura.”

 

“I feel fine, actually,” Naruto told Uhei, and hauled himself out of the bed- the actual bed!- and added, “I’ll come with!”

 

Uhei led him outside and across the street, back to the kage tower. He could see Sakura’s pink hair and Kisame’s blue everything through the window. Sasuke and Itachi were probably either nearby or at the library, wherever that was. 

 

“Hey, guys!” Naruto said as he strolled into the building. “Find anything cool?”

 

The main floor seemed to be just one room with tall ceilings and a few spiral staircases at the sides and back of the room. The floor itself had a incredible mosaic that had just one spider-webbing crack in the middle. To Naruto’s eyes, it was mostly aesthetic damage, and he kind of liked the look of it. He could see this room being the mission center, and what a reminder that crack in the floor would be. 

 

“Oh, you’re alive,” Sakura said, dropping the stack of scroll she’d been carrying. “Good! These are all sealed and I was going to bring them to you for when you woke up. Sasuke and his brother are at the library he found, trying to sort that mess out, by the way, and took care of the bodies last night. Uhei, go tell Sasuke that Naruto’s awake, please.”

 

Naruto rubbed his hands together gleefully while Uhei darted off into the streets. 

 

“We’re trying to sort out everything that’s here,” Kisame added. “There’s a ton of shit, and we’re figuring a lot of it is secret, since this is the kage tower. Sasuke already said me and Itachi have the same clearance as you three do, since we’re already here.”

 

“Oh, cool,” Naruto said, “He’s mellowed a lot, hasn’t he? Y’know, he never told us exactly what went down with his brother.”

 

“He didn’t?” Kisame asked, visibly startled.

 

“No, actually, he didn’t,” Sakura replied, turning to face him better. “And he’s probably not going to for at least three months, and I’m dying of curiosity. C’mon, Kisame, tell us what happened.”

 

“I don’t know…” Kisame said, shifting. “Itachi might not want me to spread the family drama.”

 

Naruto waved his hand dismissively. “Listen, Sasuke tells us everything, he just takes a hundred years to do it. I really want to like Itachi, and Sasuke seems to trust him, but uh, last we knew? He killed their clan in cold blood. And that Danzo is somehow involved. C’mon, Kisame, tell us!”

 

“You two are so fucking nosy,” Sasuke complained, making both Naruto and Sakura jump. “I told you, your trap/truth seals work. I asked him some questions about that night, he answered them, and that’s that.”

 

Naruto threw his hands into the air. “You never said what questions, you bastard!” 

 

Sasuke reached for Naruto, an exam jutsu glowing around his hands. “I asked what happened. He told me he only killed our parents and that someone else killed the rest of the family. Are you happy?”

 

“I mean, not really,” Naruto said, frowning, “Now we don’t know who we have to kill to avenge your family, Sasuke.”

 

Sasuke grunted. “Itachi and I will worry about that.”

 

“No,” Naruto growled, grabbing Sasuke by his arm and pulling him in. “We’re your team. Your worries are our worries, bastard. Spill.”

 

Sasuke stilled for a long moment, and Naruto only let go when he saw the hard glimmer of mean stubbornness fade into a more fond stubbornness. Sasuke would tell them eventually, but not right now, if only because Naruto was pressing him to. That was okay, Naruto thought as he released Sasuke from his grasp. As long as he told them eventually.

 

“You don’t have to tell us now, you know that,” Naruto said as he turned back to the pile of sealed scrolls, “But you know we’re going to help you no matter what, Sasuke.”

 

“I know,” Sasuke said softly, then louder, “Alright, hold still and let me make sure you’re not going to drop dead on us.”

 

.

 

Naruto hated to see his teammates go even though he knew it was necessary. He kind of wished he could be in Sakura’s place, going to see Tazuna, but like he’d said, she was more appealing to civilians. 

 

“They’ll come back, you two,” Kisame said. 

 

Naruto turned and saw Itachi staring in the direction that Sasuke and his pack had left in, and realized that this was probably just as hard for Itachi as it was for him.

 

“Well,” he forced himself to say as cheerily as he could, “Now that they’re gone, I’ve got some plans I want to set up that both of them are totally gonna bitch at me for later. Wanna help?”

 

“What part of it are they going to dislike?” Itachi asked, turning away just so. Naruto was very grateful for Tenzo forcing him to learn to read his teammates, because Itachi acted just Sasuke had before he’d relaxed. 

 

“Oh, nothing bad,” Naruto assured him. “We just have totally different ideas of where things should be in a city. Sakura thinks everything should be zoned and separated, and Sasuke thinks that the training grounds should never be near anything, if possible. You probably heard us shouting about it the other day.”

 

“Ah,” Itachi said, “That’s what that was about.”

 

Naruto pulled a map out of his pocket. “Okay, so, here’s my plan…”

 

And that’s how their week goes: Naruto, Itachi, and Kisame tagging the more intact buildings for Tazuna to rebuild, and the more damaged buildings for Tazuna to raze so that Tenzou can turn the leftover spots into small training grounds. 

 

“They’re going to be for genin and academy students,” Naruto said, pretending that he wasn’t also still, technically, a genin. “I always thought it made a lot of civilians more scared of shinobi when they couldn’t see what they were doing, y’know?”

 

“It’s dangerous for civilians to be near training shinobi, though,” Itachi replied. 

 

Naruto shrugged. “That’s what barrier seals are for. What, you think I didn’t plan for that? Nah, I already designed and tested the seals I’m planning on installing. They don’t hold up to too much battering, but they do glow a nice, freaky red color when they’re about to collapse, so even if some dumb kid goes a little too hard, civilians will have time to run and whoever’s training will have time to stop before they hurt anyone.”

 

“That’s… clever.”

 

Naruto beamed. “Thanks!”

 

Sakura stopped for just a day when she brought Tazuna to Uzushio, and claimed a building with a view of both the ocean and a building tagged to be turned into a nice park.

 

“I made someone a promise,” she said, purposefully being vague just because she could, Naruto knew, “I intend to deliver. Anyway, I’ll be back in another week or two. If I’m late, I’ll send Uhei ahead of me to tell you.”

 

Tenzo showed up, alone. 

 

“Sasuke sends his regards,” he told Naruto. “And that he thinks his mission is going to take a month or two more than he originally anticipated.” 

 

“That’s fine,” Naruto said, working very hard to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “He can handle himself. I’ve got a bunch of jobs for you, by the way! Here, let me show you…”

 

He gave Tenzo free reign to design each of the inner training grounds and parks however he liked, and only asked that he vary the outer training grounds enough to give their future shinobi plenty of different terrains to work with. Tenzo pretended to not be delighted, but Naruto knew better, especially after he’d visited one of the finished parks and found it was populated by all kinds of flowering trees and bushes and plants all somehow perfectly coordinated to look like a manicured garden. 

 

The boatman who’d ferried Naruto and his team over had been the one to bring every one of the newcomers to the village, and Naruto made sure to greet every newcomer personally. 

 

“Thanks again, Takumi,” Naruto always said.

 

“Happy to help, Uzumaki-san,” Takumi would reply, “I’ll be by with the next batch as soon as they arrive.”

 

Naruto always knew when Takumi was on his way, because Itachi had instructed his huge murder of crows to circle the village and the surrounding sea and report to him if anyone approached. He’d done so without being asked, which both irritated and pleased Naruto. 

 

On the one hand, it was great to know who was coming in and when, but on the other hand, Naruto knew that the crow contract was a more standard contract and it strained Itachi’s reserves to keep his crows summoned all of the time. Sasuke was going to be pissed at both of them for it, Naruto knew, but he needed that information, and didn’t have more options yet, because the only shinobi on the island was him, Itachi, Kisame, and Tenzou. 

 

Naruto waited an agonizing, anxious two more weeks after Tenzou’s arrival for more of their shinobi allies to arrive so he could finally make Itachi stop wasting chakra. 

 

“Oh, Kaito!” Naruto greeted when he saw the man. “I’m so glad to see you alive! Did you defect, or…?”

 

“I defected,” Kaito said, and waved at the two genin with him. “Two of my students joined me, as well. Where do you need us?”

 

Naruto didn’t ask after his third student. “Well, get settled, first. I’ll walk you to the Tower. Our quartermaster is set up on the bottom floor, and he’ll get you set up with a home and supplies. I’ll let you know what I need you guys to do once you’re comfortable, okay?”

 

“Thank you,” Kaito said, and let Naruto escort him to the Tower. 

 

Naruto had made Itachi their quartermaster for now, with a little over half a dozen children too small for construction work as his aides. His crows drained his chakra enough that he couldn’t use his mangekyou, which was going to please Sasuke, but it also drained him enough that he couldn’t do much more than paperwork.

 

“Kaito, this is Itachi,” Naruto said, and gently pushed down the weapon Kaito brandished at Itachi. “He’s our quartermaster. Yes, he’s that Itachi. No, he’s not murderous. Yes, Sasuke’s forgiven him even if he won’t actually say so. No, he’s not a danger to anyone.”

 

“You’re sure?” Kaito asked, eying Itachi warily. 

 

Itachi’s lip curled up at one corner. “You’ve been practicing that, haven’t you, Naruto-kun?”

 

“Oh, for sure,” Naruto replied. “Itachi, this is Kaito Toshida and his two students who’s names I don’t know. He’s gonna need at least a two-bedroom, and I want to set him up close to one of the outer training grounds, since he’s got genin.”

 

Itachi nodded and turned to one of his aides. “The key and deed to number fourteen Hibiscus Avenue, please.”

 

A small girl handed him a roll of paper and a keyring that had just one key and a piece of thick paper with the address written neatly on it. Itachi unrolled the deed and pointed to a line at the bottom. 

 

“Please sign here, Toshido-san,” Itachi said, and took a few sheets of paper given to him by another small child. “And then I will need you and your students to fill out just a few pages of paperwork, for our records, and then you’ll be free to go.”

 

Kaito stepped forward gingerly, looking between him and Naruto as if this was all a cruel joke the two of them were playing on him and that at any moment one or both would snap and kill him. He signed the deed, filled out the paperwork on the corner of Itachi’s desk and watched as his two students filled out their own paperwork before handing them over to Itachi.

 

“Thank you, Toshido-san,” Itachi said pleasantly. “Feel free to eat any fruit you find, and dinner is at exactly six o’clock on the bottom floor of the medical building.”

 

Naruto ushered Kaito back out of the building after that, with a small apologetic wave to Itachi as they went. 

 

“He’s really…?” Kaito asked, hesitantly. 

 

“Yep,” Naruto replied. “I promise, everything you’ve heard is total bullshit, okay? He’s a cool guy. Really quiet, but funny when you can actually catch his jokes. He’s sneaky! I almost never know when he’s joking until like, ten minutes later.”

 

“So the rumors are true?” Kaito asked, “the whole Massacre was a set-up, too?”

 

“Yeah,” Naruto said, sobering up. “There’s a lot of things that were set-ups. We’re working on a packet to hand out. Anyway, get some rest, and then find me when you’re ready and I’ll set you all up with jobs, okay?”

 

The next morning, just before noon, Kaito appeared, asking for a job, and Naruto stationed him and his two students at three of the four lookout towers, and forced Itachi to send most of his summons back to the summoning realm. 

 

Slowly, more and more allies trickled into their gates. Naruto couldn’t always greet them all, but by the time he was busy enough to not be able to, he’d gotten a packet of information ready and given it to Takumi to hand out to shinobi to read on the way in, which seemed to make Itachi’s life much less stressful. 

 

It went on like that for months. Sakura showed up at least every other week with new civilians, Sasuke appeared less often, but sent more letters and gifts, and Naruto kept himself busy with setting up their newly rebuilt village.

 

Akari was the new Head Medic, and had recruited nearly a dozen various children as trainees alongside the few medics she and Sasuke had managed to recruit. 

 

Yui, a chuunin teacher from Grass who Sasuke personally vouched for, had become the headmaster of their academy, and had recruited one of Kaito’s genin, Kiyoko, to help her teach. Naruto had, reluctantly, insisted that all children attend the academy, and then told Yui to never pressure any of them to become shinobi. It hadn’t been a perfect compromise, since that meant Yui and Kiyoko couldn’t teach shinobi arts except to children who specifically asked, but it did give all of the children more or less equal learning opportunities. 

 

Itachi asked to be kept as the quartermaster, so Naruto let him. It was mostly a desk job, which was good, but it required the sort of attention to detail that Itachi was so excellent at. He’d even kept three of his original aides. Naruto had taken to jokingly calling him Itachi-sensei, which had then stuck with the three kids, and eventually, Itachi had caved and created paperwork that officially made him a jonin sensei.

 

All in all, Naruto thought as he sat on the dock, kicking his bare feet in the warm saltwater and waiting for his team to finally return, a year and a half after they’d first began recruiting in earnest, he thought Uzushiogakure was doing quite well and had a very promising future ahead of it. 

 

He grinned, though it was darker than his usual one. Uzushio was doing well enough that, soon, Danzo was going to get what was coming to him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once this fic is finally finished, i'm thinking about going back and editing it to not be a horrible first draft like it is. is that something you'd like to see? Or do you like it the way it is?


	5. Sasuke

Sasuke wasted no time in finding Akari and sending her on to Uzushigakure. 

 

“We need a head medic,” he’d told her. “You’re the best for the job.”

 

She’d scowled at him and waved to her tent. “Then who’s going to run around healing people, huh? Two dozen towns have already booked check ups with me, you know! I can’t just not show up, you arrogant little shit.”

 

“I’ll do it,” Sasuke told her, and that’s how he’d inherited her tent and the responsibilities that came with it. 

 

Still, Sasuke thought as he told yet another somewhat trustworthy-looking missing-nin about the rebuilding of Uzushio, it wasn’t all bad. At least there were weeks that Akari had set aside in her books for recovery, so he could swing back by his village to restock and check its progress. 

 

And wasn’t that a weird thought to have? His village. He was, technically, a kage. Sure, he wasn’t acting like one yet, but Naruto refused to let him wiggle out of the responsibility he’d given him. It was endearing, if horribly annoying. 

 

The first of their allies he’d located had been Tenzou. 

 

“What happened?” Sasuke demanded as he pressed his hands into the gaping wound in Tenzou’s gut. “Hold still.”

 

“ROOT caught up with me,” Tenzou gasped. 

 

Sasuke pressed his lips together and forced the wound to stitch itself together. “Tell me about that later. What was the weapon?”

 

“Oh,” Tenzou replied, sounding like he was a hundred miles away. “A katana, I think. I’m not sure. There were a lot of- ouch!”

 

Sasuke gave up on trying to get information from him. Sure, if he had it, it would be helpful to speed up the process, because he’d know what to look for and knew how the most common weapons damaged the body, but not knowing wouldn’t get Tenzou killed. 

 

An hour later, Tanzou was stable and resting on a cot with Bisuke keeping a careful eye on him and his vitals with strict instructions to howl if anything went wrong, just make Sasuke’s job a little more annoying.

 

Luckily, nothing went wrong, and Sasuke didn’t have to delay any of the check ups Akari had promised the town he was in, which meant he could move on in time and not have to rush to get to the next village. That pleased him- he did enjoy helping and healing, but he also very much needed that peaceful travelling time to balance out the amount of social interaction he was forced to endure in the villages. 

 

Tenzou woke up while Sasuke was setting out a dinner that a local had brought for him and his dogs. 

 

“Status update,” Sasuke ordered as he shovelled some food onto an extra paper plate for Tenzou.

 

“Sore muscles, tired, headache,” Tenzou listed. “My chakra reserves seem to be a little low, as well.”

 

“I borrowed some,” Sasuke told him. “Eat. I was running low, and your body seemed to prefer that I use your chakra to heal you with.”

 

Tenzou nodded and ate silently. 

 

Sasuke liked Tenzou. Sure, he was weird, and sometimes creepy, but he was quiet and tidy and helped clean up after dinner. Naruto liked to complain about him, but Sasuke was fairly certain that he was exaggerating most of the stories, as he tended to do, because Tenzou was just so fucking peaceful. 

 

“We’ve begun rebuilding,” Sasuke said. “It’s safe, and Naruto could use your help.”

 

“Oh,” Tenzou said, eyes widening just a bit. “Already? I suppose you and Sakura are looking for allies and recruits?”

 

Sasuke nodded. “I’m to find our allies in need of safety. Sakura’s looking for civilians. When you get there, tell Naruto I send my regards and that this bullshit is going to take at least a month, maybe two months, longer than I anticipated and that he can thank Akari for that.”

 

“I’ll tell him,” Tenzou said. 

 

Sasuke nodded and returned to his meal. 

 

.

 

“Kaito,” Sasuke said, surprised, when the man entered his tent late one night, after he’d finished the check ups and vaccinations for the town he was currently in.

 

“Sasuke,” Kaito replied, smiling weakly and leaning heavily on two of his students. “I could use some help.”

 

Sasuke pointed to a cot, and fired up his exam jutsu. “What weapons and-or techniques were used against you?”

 

“Kunai, shuriken, and some water jutsu,” the girl genin said. “Our third teammate, he… Didn’t want us to leave.”

 

“He fucking betrayed us, Kiyoko,” the boy snapped. 

 

“Shut up, Naoki!”

 

“Both of you shut up,” Sasuke snapped. “Get out of the way and let me work.”

 

It was a matter of minutes to patch up Kaito, as he was more exhausted than injured. He passed out about halfway through, and Sasuke left him to sleep on the cot while he moved on to tidying up his tools after he’d asked Kaito’s students for the full story. 

 

“Our teammate, he was pissed when we first ran into you guys,” Naoki explained while Kiyoko sulked on the floor next to Kaito’s cot. “He said we were aiding and abetting traitors, and that he should report us, but he didn’t.”

 

“He did, though!” Kiyoko hissed. “Sure, not right away, but he still did!”

 

“Get the fuck over it, Kiyoko!”

 

“How am I supposed to get over it? He was our teammate! He was supposed to trust us!”

 

Sasuke snarled. “No shouting in my tent!”

 

Both of them fell silent. 

 

“Thank you,” He said, trying to keep his voice level, at a normal volume, and not angry. “Now, if you two don’t have anything better to do, you can at least help me clean and pack up.”

 

They did, and though Sasuke had to hover over them a few times to ensure they packed things up correctly, it did cut down his packing time by at least two thirds, so if nothing else, they saved him some time. The work also, thankfully, seemed to calm the two down, though Kiyoko seemed to constantly be on the verge of crying and Naoki sometimes slammed things a little harder than necessary. 

 

Sasuke waited to finish packing until morning, when Kaito woke. 

 

“Uzushio is up and running,” Sasuke said. “Naruto’s coordinating. He could use your help, and it’s safe there.”

 

Kaito nodded and lifted himself gingerly. “We’ll head there straight away, then.”

 

Sasuke nodded and let both him and his team help tear down and pack away his tent before gave them the coordinates and set off towards the next town. 

 

.

 

And so it went. He didn’t run into an ally or new recruit in each town, though it was close. He’d heal them, then send the one he didn’t trust away and send the ones he did trust to Uzushio, to his village. 

 

It was weird thing, being a part of a village again, Sasuke realized after a few months, especially since he hadn’t seen it more than a few times since they’d officially begun rebuilding. Every time he had visited- no, not visited. He lived there, technically, didn’t he? Every time he returned home, it had grown nearly exponentially. 

 

It also was becoming more beautiful. Naruto told him that he was encouraging everyone to keep their customs, and it showed. Itachi privately told him that he was very much ensuring that he was placing each newcomer with neighbors with compatible personalities and cultures to avoid any mess. 

 

“You know Naruto knows you’re doing that,” Sasuke had pointed out. “It’s not as sneaky as you’re pretending it is.”

 

“I’m sure,” Itachi had replied primly, “But I will not mention it until he does. He enjoys believing that everyone will simply get along if he wills it to be so, but I prefer ensuring that conflicts need not arise. That, and I find it enjoyable. Per your medical orders, I’m working a desk job. I have to entertain myself somehow.”

 

Sasuke had conceded the point. 

 

What was weirder about being in his new home was that people greeted him with reverence more often than not. He knew he was one of the three Kages, and that of course Naruto was making sure everyone knew it, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be treated differently. 

 

“That’s unnecessary,” he told each and every one of their citizens that called him Sasuke-sama or, worse, Uchiha-sama. “Just call me Sasuke, please.”

 

Of course, they always hemmed and hawed about how rude that would be, but Sasuke would, in return, insist until they gave in and called him just Sasuke, at least to his face. He’d only accept Sasuke-sama when he was old and decrepit, and he’d never, ever accept Uchiha-sama.

 

Leaving his new home was less pleasant than he’d anticipated it would be. Of course he anticipated Naruto pretending he wasn’t horribly sad to be alone again, but what he hadn’t anticipated was his own reluctance to leave. 

 

When they’d been on the run, he’d always hated to leave his team for fear they’d die while he was gone. He expected his reluctance to leave them would disappear once he knew his team would be safe when he left them, but that was very much not the case. If anything, he was more reluctant to leave. 

 

Itachi rode with him to the mainland once when he had to leave again.

 

“You’re not coming with me,” Sasuke had told him flatly. 

 

“Of course not,” Itachi had replied. “I have a job to do here. I’m merely taking an extended lunch break to see my beloved brother off.”

 

Takumi rolled his eyes and pushed off from the dock without giving Sasuke a chance to insist that Itachi remove himself from the boat. 

 

Sasuke scowled. “No, you want to lecture me.”

 

“No,” Itachi said. “Just to reassure you. I’m following your medical instructions to the letter...”

 

“You’d better fucking be.”

 

Itachi continued, “...and that the only reason I would disregard your instructions were if your People or my People were in danger. Please trust me, Sasuke. I know I don’t deserve it, but…”

 

“Oh, fuck off,” Sasuke snapped. “Don’t fucking act all guilty, alright? It’s fine. I’m not upset about your involvement anymore. Have I forgiven you? Fuck if I know, but don’t talk about not deserving shit, because that’s bullshit. You deserve just the same as anyone, okay?”

 

Itachi fell silent for a while, then said, “I apologize. I did not intend to… I’m sorry. I just want you to know I’ll protect Naruto and Sakura the same way I would protect you or Kisame.”

 

Sasuke said nothing until the boat hit the dock on the mainland, and waited until he had hauled himself and Bisuke and Chika out of the boat to reply. 

 

“I know, Aniki,” he said, and poked Itachi’s forehead the way Itachi used to poke his when they were children. “Make sure he doesn’t burn himself out, and don’t burn yourself out, either, got it?”

 

Itachi smiled wider than Sasuke had seen since they were very young. “Got it, Sasuke.”

 

.

 

Eventually, Sasuke reached the end of the bookings Akari had made. He’d told each town that the service was being discontinued, and then informed them of several other travelling medics that they could book with. 

 

“What are you doing, then?” one woman asked him. 

 

“I’m recruiting for a new ninja village from a small country,” Sasuke told her. “We’re keeping it mostly quiet until we’re strong enough to support ourselves without our allies, though, so please keep quiet about it.”

 

“I will,” the woman promised. “Though, if you’re recruiting, I think that that horrible snake man, you know, one of the missing Sanin from Konohagakure? I think he abandoned a base nearby. We get visited by some shinobi-types pretty often, the same ones always, looking for supplies. They’re good for the economy, but frighten people.”

 

Sasuke tilted his head. “Are they trustworthy, then?”

 

The woman shrugged. “They’re peaceful enough. Rowdy, some of them, but not hostile. They’re strong, though. My grandson saw them sparring a few months back, and when he brought someone else by to look, they’d destroyed a few dozen yards of the nearby forest.”

 

“I’ll look into it, thank you,” Sasuke said. 

 

And he did, actually. Naruto and Sakura might strangle him later for getting so close to something to do with Orochimaru after the near-miss he’d had during the chuunin exams, but he was in charge of finding shinobi allies, and that was what he was going to do. 

 

Finding the apparently abandoned lab was easier than he’d thought it would be, and getting the attention of whoever was inside was also easier than he’d anticipated: he’d just gone up to the not very secret entrance and knocked loudly. 

 

After a few minutes, a very large man answered it with, “Hello, sorry to be rude, but who are you?”

 

“My name is Sasuke Uchiha,” he told the man. “I’m looking for people willing to join my village.”

 

“Sorry, again, but...” the very large man said, “I thought you were a missing nin?”

 

“I was,” Sasuke answered, “But my team and I have begun rebuilding Uzushiogakure, and we’re recruiting.”

 

“Uzushio!?” a loud, female voice shouted from down a hallway. Sasuke heard rapid footsteps, and then a woman with wild, familiar red hair was standing next to the very large man. “Did you just say you’re rebuilding Uzushio?”

 

“I did,” Sasuke said warily. 

 

“My family’s from there!” the woman explained loudly. “Oh, Juugo, we have to go, come on, I’ll get Suigetsu and start packing, oh my god I’m so excited I haven’t been this excited since we defected from Sound! Juugo, I’m gonna go to Uzushio! Can you even believe it? I thought I’d never get to see it and-!”

 

“Come in, please,” Juugo said over the woman’s rambling, “I’m Juugo, that’s Karin Uzumaki, and our other friend is Suigetsu Houzuki. We’d be happy to join your village.”

 

“Uzumaki,” Sasuke said, then closed his eyes. “Fuck, there’s more of him…”

 

“Him?” Karin said, her eyes zeroing in on Sasuke like a hawk. “More of? Is there another Uzumaki out there? Who? Tell me!”

 

“His name is Naruto,” Sasuke said, giving in to the inevitability of having to deal with two overexcited Uzumaki, “He’s my teammate.”

 

Karin yelled wordlessly and Chika flinched against his neck. He reached up and covered one of her ears and one of his, hoping to at least mitigate the damage to both of their eardrums at least a little bit. 

 

“She’s very happy to hear that,” Juugo translated. “Come in, we have refreshments, and it will take some time for Karin to calm down enough to start packing.”

 

Sasuke followed after Juugo and decided he was going to get Karin to Uzushio as fast as he possibly could. Not only did she deserve to find what was left of her clan, but so did Naruto, and it would get her screaming joy away from his very sensitive ears. 

 

.

 

“There’s something you should know,” Juugo said as he set a plate of food in front of Sasuke.

 

Sasuke accepted the plate and waited for Juugo to continue. 

 

“You know we’re Orochimaru’s experiments, yes?” Juugo asked, and when Sasuke nodded, he said, “Well, we were considered failed experiments, and more volatile than we were worth. Orochimaru assigned us to this lab, to keep us out of the way, I suppose.”

 

“Volatile how?” Sasuke asked, raising an eyebrow.

 

Juugo ducked his head. “Sometimes I get very angry, and nothing can stop my rages except exhaustion. Karin and Suigetsu have to team up against me to do that, though. Suigetsu has a condition that makes him turn into water unexpectedly, sometimes. We believe it was originally a family technique, but Orochimaru seems to have destabilized it.”

 

Sasuke tilted his head curiously. “And Karin?”

 

“Karin isn’t so much dangerous in the way I am, nor unstable in the way Suigetsu is,” Juugo admitted. “But she’s an Uzumaki.”

 

Sasuke nodded, understanding completely. Uzumaki were dangerous just for being an Uzumaki. 

 

“That’s fine,” Sasuke said eventually. “Naruto is a master of seals and we have an excellent medical staff. If nothing else, we can always section off a training ground to direct your rages towards, though I’m sure Naruto will be able to figure something out to help.”

 

“You know,” a new voice snapped, “I didn’t actually agree to this. Why should I come? How are they going to be better than fucknig Orochimaru?”

 

Sasuke turned to see the newcomer. “Are you Suigetsu?”

 

He sneered. “Yeah, what’s it to you?”

 

“I’m Sasuke Uchiha,” he said, “One of the Three Kages of Uzushiogakure. We rebuilt Uzushio on the idea of making, and I quote, ‘a shinobi village built on not lying to everyone.’ If you don’t wish to join our village we won’t force you. It’s your choice to become an active shinobi or a civilian of Uzushio, or just have an extended visitor’s visa.”

 

Suigetsu squinted at him warily. “We can become a civilian and not a shinobi? Even if we were trained as one?”

 

Sasuke shrugged. “I don’t see why not. You’ll just have to fill out the appropriate paperwork, either way.”

 

“Hmph.” Suigetsu folded his arms. “I’ll believe it when I fuckin’ see it. Pass me a plate, Juugo.”

 

“Language, please,” Juugo pleaded, but handed him a plate anyway. “We have a guest, Suigetsu!”

 

“Eh,” Suigetsu said, and started eating. 

 

Sasuke bit back a smile, knowing that these three were going to fit perfectly into Uzushiogakure and that Suigetsu was probably going to irritate the hell out of Itachi. He may be forgiving his brother, but it was still satisfying to annoy him from time to time.

 

.

 

What Sasuke did not expect was for Suigetsu, Karin, and Juugo to tag along with him to his next few stops instead of going directly to Uzushiogakure. 

 

“You want to come with me?” Sasuke asked again. 

 

“Yeah, duh,” Suigetsu replied. “We wanna see what kind of person the Kage of Uzushio is. We got burned by a bad kage once already, okay? We’re not looking to repeat the experience.”

 

“Oh, I’m going to Uzushio regardless,” Karin said, “But I go where Juugo goes, and Juugo wants to stick with this fucking asshole for a while, ‘cause he likes him, and Suigetsu’s the one who doesn’t trust you at all.”

 

“Language, please,” Juugo said. “I think of Suigetsu as a friend, even if he doesn’t think the same way of me.”

 

“That’s cause you’re fucking dangerous, pal,” Suigetsu snapped.

 

Sasuke frowned at Suigetsu. “So am I. So are you. So is every shinobi out there.”

 

Suigetsu scoffed and turned away. 

 

“Thank you, but I don’t think you’ll change his mind,” Juugo said. 

 

Sasuke didn’t know why he wanted to defend Juugo so much. There was no way he’d become one of his People, and there was little chance he ever would. But there was something gentle about Juugo. Maybe he’d change his mind whenever he saw him go into a rage, but somehow he doubted it. 

 

“Don’t worry about that jackass,” Karin added. “He doesn’t hate Juugo as much as he pretends to, you know.”

 

Sasuke shrugged, gave Chika a scratch between the ears and started walking again. 

 

.

 

He’d managed to find the last dozen or so Konoha defectors on his mental list in the two months he had left before he was expected back, and sent them to Uzushiogakure ahead of him. 

 

“One last stop,” he told his temporary team.

 

“You said we got everyone,” Suigetsu complained. 

 

“We did,” Sasuke said. “The last stop is to pick up Sakura.”

 

“Ooh,” Karin cooed, “You mean the girl you’re in love with? Oh, I can’t wait to meet her! I bet she’s a badass. You seem like the type to like someone who can kick your ass.”

 

Sasuke ignored the heat rushing to his ears and pet Chika instead of thinking about what Karin said. It was none of her business and he wasn’t going to encourage her nonsense whatsoever, not even by arguing. He’d learned that lesson the hard way, since arguing had only convinced her further that he was in love with Sakura. 

 

Mind you, he was, but he didn’t need anyone, least of all Sakura, to know that. Plus, it was leaving out the whole bit about how he was also in love with his other teammate.

 

Sakura was easy enough to find, once he told Bisuke to track her down. He knew her scent as well as he knew Sasuke’s and Chika’s and Naruto’s. It took just a week for him to bring them to her, and nearly got his tail taken off when he surprised her. 

 

“Oh, Bisuke, I’m sorry!” Sakura said, reaching out to pet him in apology. “You scared the hell out of me! You know better than to run up to me when I’m napping! Wait, Bisuke? What are you doing here? Where’s-?”

 

“Sakura,” Sasuke said, and cursed his inability to keep the fondness out of his voice. 

 

“Sasuke!” Sakura replied, and yanked him into a fierce hug. 

 

He hugged back as best he could through the bone breaking grip she had on him. He cursed the fact that he was built for speed over power, because really, he’d like to at least be able to breathe when Sakura hugged him like this.

 

“I missed you! How are you? How’s Naruto? I was there a few weeks ago, but have you been by to see him since?” Sakura said, then saw Suigetsu, Karin, and Juugo, and asked, “Who are they?”

 

Sasuke introduced them to her as soon as she let him down, and explained their situation in as few words as he could find. 

 

“Oh, Naruto can totally figure out a seal to help balance your moods, Juugo,” Sakura assured him. “He’s very good with seals. You know that Uzushio was being protected by a giant seven point seal that he was able to decipher in a few hours? He’ll be able to help you, I promise, and if he can’t I’m sure Sasuke or Akari can.”

 

“Hn,” Sasuke said, agreeing. He’d already been thinking of why someone would have fits of rage like Juugo had- and he’d been right, it had been more frightening than he’d anticipated, but something about Sasuke’s eyes had calmed him back down- and the only thing he could think of was a terrible imbalance of his brain chemistry.

 

“See?” Sakura said, waving at him. 

 

Karin, Juugo, and Suigetsu stared blankly at her. 

 

Sakura paused. “Oh, right. You don’t speak Uchiha yet. Well, you’ll probably learn. We’ve got two, you know.”

 

“Wait,” Karin said. “I thought the only two left were Sasuke and his brother who killed the rest of their family. How do you have…?”

 

“Sasuke,” Sakura said, placing her hands on her hips and glaring at him. “Did you deliberately not tell them your brother was forced into it or did you forget?”

 

Sasuke looked at Chika and started petting her as an excuse to not look at Sakura. “...I wanted to irritate him.”

 

Sakura threw her hands into the air, exasperated. Sasuke bit back a fond smile, even as she started in on a lecture about being nice to his poor, ill, probably overworked and stressed out brother. 

 

“You can lecture me at home,” Sasuke said eventually, cutting her off. 

 

Sakura huffed. “Oh, alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> update re: edits. I'm going to rewrite this at some point, but only after I finish writing this draft. When I do rewrite, I'm going to post it as it's own fic, either in this series or as it's own or both. I also rescind my harsh words about this being a horrible first draft. Thanks for letting me know your opinions, guys!!!!!!!


	6. Sakura

Sakura didn’t like the idea of getting Tazuna, of course, no matter how determined Naruto was about him. Still, she’d get him, and she’d bring him and his family and his workers or whoever over to Uzushio. 

 

“I won’t stay forever,” he said when she arrived at his door and explained what they were asking of him, “But I’d be happy to have the work. It’s slowed down quite a bit here, you know! After you lot left my business was booming! But now I’ve built and rebuilt everything needing building and rebuilding and nobody needs me anymore...”

 

Sakura didn’t see why anyone needed Tazuna, but smiled politely and gave empty congratulations and condolences. 

 

“Dad, go finish that job you’re supposed to finish,” Tsunami said, and promptly shooed him out of the house with a heavy bento in hand, ignoring his dramatic protests.

 

“How much time do you need?” Sakura asked her. “I can leave and come back if need be, but we are in a bit of a hurry to get the city fit for human habitation…”

 

“Oh, no,” Tsunami said. “Dad’s last job is supposed to finish today. He’s semi-retired, now that the village is mostly rebuilt and going strong again, since you stopped Gato from bleeding us dry. My son and I are going to stay here- he’s got an apprenticeship with a local fishing boat and I work in the mayor’s office- but Dad will be ready to go whenever you are, I think.”

 

“Oh,” Sakura said. 

 

Tsunami smiled. “Please, sit, relax. I’ll set out some water for your dogs and get dad packed up. Do you know how long you’ll need him?”

 

“No, I don’t, unfortunately,” Sakura replied, “We don’t exactly know anything about construction, and there’s a lot of internal damage to the buildings. We think the outsides are mostly safe, but we want to be sure before we start bringing in more civilians, you know?”

 

“Oh, of course” Tsunami replied. “Well, like I said, make yourself at home and when Dad’s done working, you two can go ahead and set off.”

 

So Sakura made herself and her dogs comfortable. She dozed for a few hours, happy to have the time to relax, while Taiki kept watch and gleefully accepted frequent pettings from Tsunami and Inari.

 

Tazuna finally returned home, saw the large backpack sitting ready at the door and looked at his daughter mournfully. 

 

“You’re already trying to kick your dear old dad out of the house?” he said, sounding more wounded than he probably was. “I do so much for you! How could you do this to me!”

 

“Dad,” Tsunami chastised. “It’s for tomorrow morning. I wouldn’t send poor Sakura-chan out again after she clearly ran here. She’s been napping most of the day, you know!”

 

Tazuna gripped at his chest dramatically. “You’re putting the wellbeing of a girl in her prime over the wellbeing of your poor old father? For shame!”

 

Sakura bit back a laugh as the two continued bickering over dinner, and graciously accepted the futon in the guest bedroom. It was hard to fall asleep without her boys, even with her pack. She’d grown so used to the sounds of Naruto’s snoring and Sasuke’s soft breathing and Hotaru’s tossing and turning and Chika’s little needle-like paws and Bisuke’s head on her ankle and Bull serving as a most excellent pillow and Shiba’s snores echoing with Naruto’s. 

 

“We should summon Grandma soon,” Maiya said as she settled across Sakura’s lap for the night. “She misses you.”

 

“Oh,” Sakura realized, “it’s been at least three years, hasn’t it?”

 

Uhei laid his head on Sakura’s knee. “Yeah, it has. Let’s do it after we drop the old man off with Naruto. I know a good spot just outside of Fire country to do it, too.”

 

“Okay, let’s do it,” Sakura agreed, and began the process of forcing herself to go to sleep. “Goodnight, everyone.”

 

. 

 

In the morning, Tsunami fed Sakura and all of her dogs, and when they were done, promptly kicked her father out of the house with instructions to not come back until Sakura’s team didn’t need him anymore.

 

“Sheesh,” Tazuna said, rubbing his temples. “Got that mouth of hers from her mother, bless her soul.”

 

“Mmhm,” Sakura said blankly. “Are you ready, Tazuna-san?”

 

“Lead on,” he replied, adjusting his backpack. “Say, how’s Naruto? I saw him a few months ago when he swung by, but I know how fast things can change for you lot.”

 

“Naruto’s doing well,” Sakura told him. “We’re rebuilding an abandoned ninja village and made ourselves the Kage, so he’s happy as he possibly could be.”

 

Tazuna asked a few more questions, and Sakura started answering more and more tersely until he gave up and stopped talking altogether. She hoped he would remain quiet for the rest of the week it would take to get to Uzushio at civilian speed, though she rather doubted it. 

 

The next morning, she discovered she’d been right to doubt that Tazuna would remain quiet, as he started the morning with cheery and obnoxious chatter that Sakura barely tolerated until he finally, blissfully shut up. Uhei kept giving her disappointed looks, but Sakura couldn’t bring herself to care. She distinctly remembered disliking Tazuna the first time he’d been her client, and her opinion of him hadn’t changed at all since then. 

 

Luckily, he walked much faster when sober, so she was home in just five days rather than the expected full week. 

 

“Sakura, you’re home!” Naruto cheered. “Tazuna! You’re here! Oh, man, I have so much work for you, it’s unreal. I’m sorry the pay isn’t going to be super great per job, but we’ve got a lot so it should all work out, but also we can pay you more later if you need it and-”

 

“Tazuna-san,” Sakura said, reluctantly pulling his attention back to her. “I have one request.”

 

“Oh?” Tazuna said. “What’s that?”

 

“I made a promise to someone that I’d get them a nice house with a comfortable chair and bring them here to live. She gave me this,” Sakura said, and plucked at the opening of her Original Uzushio kimono top that she wore over her clothes like a swimsuit coverup, “and I’m very grateful to her. I will personally pay you double your asking price for a building with a nice view for her.”

 

“I’ll get it done,” Tazuna said, nodding his head politely. 

 

Sakura nodded back and turned on her heel. 

 

“Sakura-chan!” Naruto whined behind her, “Are you leaving again already!?”

 

She rolled her eyes and called over her shoulder, “No, you dumbass, I’m going to go take a nap at home and restock. See you later!”

 

.

 

“Give me month and your weird clones as laborers, Naruto, and I’ll have a dozen ready to live in,” Tazuna said during a meeting with the only citizens of Uzushio, the next morning. “I’m not a carpenter, though, or an electrician, or a plumber, so they’re going to be pretty bare-bones. But they’ll be livable.”

 

“I won’t be able to recruit civilians that fast anyway,” Sakura told Naruto. “How soon should I get us a carpenter, an electrician, and a plumber?”

 

Tazuna shrugged. “They can do their jobs as soon as I’ve got the floors stable, so I’d say a good week, maybe.”

 

Sakura nodded. “I’ll get them here as fast as possible, then. Any other kinds of people we’ll need soon?”

 

“Yes,” Itachi said, speaking up for the first time. “I would be grateful if you could find someone with experience with paperwork for me, or, barring that, someone willing to learn. I’m creating nearly all of the new paperwork for Uzushio based on what I remember of Konohagakure’s paperwork system, though simplified.”

 

“Jeez,” Sakura said, wincing. “That’s a lot for just one person. I’ll get you someone, don’t worry.”

 

“Metalworker,” Kisame added, and when given questioning looks, he elaborated, “for headbands and weapons and shit.”

 

Sakura nodded and looked to Naruto.

 

Naruto rubbed his head. “I can’t think of anyone else we need. Tell you what, though, I’ve finally got Kakashi’s pack summoning seal down pat and sewn it into some bandanas for our dogs. I’ll get Sasuke hooked up the next time I see him, of course, but since you’re here already, you can keep some of your dogs at home and just summon them, you know?”

 

“Great idea,” Sakura said, biting back a fond smile, “but how is that related to who I need to bring here?”

 

“Oh,” Naruto said, shaking his head. “Sorry, tangent. I meant so that you can summon a dog to see if there’s an update from time to time, or so one of your dogs can reverse summon themself to you with urgent information.”

 

“Ohh,” Sakura said, understanding then. “Great idea, Naruto.”

 

Naruto dismissed the meeting, and promptly pulled the bandanas out of his pocket, and Sakura laughed. Of course he’d had them on his person and only just remembered to give them to her. 

 

“Taiki’s coming with me, of course,” Sakura said as she tied each of the bandanas around her dogs’ necks, “and I’ll summon them all before I go to bed, because fuck sleeping without my pack, but also so I can send you daily updates and vice versa.”

 

Naruto beamed at her. “Sounds great! And…”

 

Sakura squinted at him as he paused and gave her a nervous look that meant he was going to say something he thought would either offend her or sound stupid. 

 

“And what?” she asked, hoping it wouldn’t be anything weird. 

 

He pulled out another small seal and held it out to her. “If anything happens, I can summon you through this seal, but it only works once and I only have one made for you and Sasuke each right now because they take a really ridiculous amount of chakra to make because you’re humans and it’s not like summoning dogs or crows or regular summons from the summoning realm so it’ll burn out with just one use and-!”

 

“Naruto, calm down,” Sakura said, “Try again, just one sentence this time.”

 

Naruto took a deep breath and then said, “I can summon you with this seal, but it only works once because- because it just does, so if you need me to summon you, send a dog to me and I’ll do it.”

 

Sakura took the seal from him and examined it. It looked much more complex than most of his seals, and once it was touching her skin, she could feel how much chakra had been used to make it. 

 

“Okay,” she said. “Thank you. If I’m ever in trouble I can’t get myself out of, I’ll send Taiki back to you and you can summon me back home.”

 

Naruto sighed in relief. “I was worried you’d think I thought you were weak.”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes and pulled him in for a hug. “You have personal experience with how not weak I am, you dummy. Of course I’m not mad.”

 

He leaned into her and she savored the moment. It wasn’t like she could have much more than friendly teammate contact with him, no matter how big of a crush she’d developed on him; Sasuke had already laid claim on him back when they’d gotten drunk. So she’d take what she could and be happy with it and be happy for him and Sasuke whenever Naruto stopped acting like an idiot and realized how Sasuke felt about him. 

 

.

 

Sakura didn’t feel at all bad about taking a short break from her mission to find civilians for Uzushio, because she was doing something just as important. 

 

Uhei had lead her to a deep but wide crack in the ground just inside of Wind country’s border with Fire country. As he’d said, there was plenty of space for the Old Dog to be summoned without being seen for miles. 

 

“You should summon the rest of us,” Uhei advised. “We only get to see Grandma as often as you do.”

 

So there she was, surrounded by her pack as she went through the hand signs and gathered up the chakra to summon the Old Dog for the second time in her life. 

 

She appeared in a puff of smoke, and Sakura realized that she only looked smaller because Sakura had grown since she’d last saw her. 

 

“Ah,” the Old Dog said in a voice just as wispy as Sakura remembered it, sniffing at Sakura’s hair and pulling it into the air with the force of her inhale. “Sakura-chan. It has been longer than I would like, of course, but I Saw the events that led you here.”

 

“I’m sorry, Grandmother,” Sakura said, and meant it. “I wish I’d understood what you’d Seen better back then.”

 

The Old Dog shook her head slowly. “It is unwise to dwell on what you cannot and could not have changed, little one. Do you still have my first gift to you?”

 

“Yes,” Sakura said, placing a hand on her neck where the large tooth still hung. “Of course.”

 

“Good,” the Old Dog said. “It has taught you well what you needed to know, then.”

 

For a moment, Sakura didn’t understand. Then she remembered that the Old Dog had said she’d tell her and Kakashi what they needed to know before she left the first time, but then she hadn’t said anything at all after she’d given them two of her impossible teeth. And yet, somehow Sakura seemed to know everything she’d need to as the Hatake clan heir. 

 

“The tooth…?” Sakura asked. 

 

The Old Dog dipped her head. “Not everything I say must be said aloud. It is time for your second gift, though first you may ask me one question, and I will tell you what I See.”

 

Sakura had taken her time in trying to come up with a good question, and had it ready: “Will we succeed in rebuilding Uzushiogakure?”

 

“Ahh,” the Old Dog said. “A good question. I cannot give you an easy answer, but I can tell you this: I See many human and canine pups following after you. I hear a quiet, gently voice teaching, I smell comfort and closeness. I feel two hands holding yours and each others. I taste love and promises.”

 

Sakura sucked in a shaky breath and quickly committed the Old Dog’s words to memory. 

 

“Thank you, Grandmother,” Sakura said.

 

“Stay true,” the Old Dog said, echoing what she’d told Sakura the first time she’d met her. “Now, for your gift. Reach into my mouth.”

 

Sakura obeyed, and this time did not question the canine in her palm or the four canines still in the Old Dog’s mouth. Some things weren’t made to be sensible.

 

“I will see you in one year hence,” she said. 

 

“Yes, Grandmother,” Sakura said, and meant it.

 

.

 

Sakura couldn’t help the renewed confidence she had in herself and her team and their old-but-new village. If Grandmother insisted that they would all turn out fine, then they would and there was no use in worrying about what-ifs. 

 

Still, she made sure to stay careful. Just because things were supposed to end well didn’t mean they would start off well. It was her job to bring in reliable civilian contractors to help build and perhaps live in Uzushiogakure, her village. 

 

It was also her job as one of the Three Kage to make sure those civilian contractors would be good for the village and not betray them or blab to someone who could hurt the village, which meant way more espionage than Sakura ever liked to do. 

 

“I should have studied sealing harder,” she grumbled to Taiki often. 

 

Every time she did, he replied, “You hate sealing and Naruto’s good at it. You’re doing fine and you know it.”

 

Sakura knew she was doing fine. The plumber had been easy- she’d found a man whose family had recently died, who had nobody left to care for, and would have lost himself in a bottle if she hadn’t shown up at his doorstep and asked if he’d like a job. 

 

The hardest part was pretending to be nice to people who were rude to her. She almost regretted that Kakashi had forced her to improve so fast when she was young, because as soon as she realized she wasn’t weak, she’d stopped tolerating any nonsense directed at her. Which made her distinctly bad at pretending to be a cute civilian girl, which was the easiest way to recruit people. 

 

Instead, she had to use Naruto’s disguise seals to turn her into a beefy-looking male shinobi to make her outer appearance match her attitude most days. Fucking civilians and their idiotic prejudices…

 

Still, Taiki was right. Over the course of the next year she cherry-picked the best civilians she could find and convinced as many as she could to move to Uzushiogakure. She particularly chose people with families and children, because as cold as it sounded, they were going to need fresh bodies as soon as possible, and children were malleable. 

 

“You just want to see Sasuke’s face when he realizes his brother has a genin team,” Taiki accused. 

 

Sakura laughed. “Not only that, but yeah. It’s going to be pretty hilarious.”

 

.

 

The last person she collects is the first person she promised a home. 

 

She’s greeted at Kiri’s gate politely and told that if she’s here to poach any active shinobi, she’d better turn around and walk away, though in much more polite words.

 

“I’m just here to make good on a promise someone made me,” she assured them. “I’m not here to steal any of your shinobi.”

 

She knew she was followed as she wandered through the streets, slowly winding her way towards the stall she’d met the old woman who gave her her kimono top. 

 

The woman was easy to spot, and just like before, she beckoned Sakura over, and Sakura happily approached. 

 

“Young lady,” the old woman said, “I hear tell you know a good place for an old woman to rest her bones.”

 

“I do,” Sakura replied, beaming. “I have just the perfect little house in mind for you. It’s fully furnished, just one floor, and has two beautiful view- one of the ocean and one of a nearby park.”

 

“Ah,” the old woman said. “It sounds lovely. Would you mind escorting me there? I haven’t much to pay you with, but I very much would like to see this little house you speak of.”

 

Sakura bowed deeply. “I would be happy to escort you. First, though, please allow me to help you pack. I insist.”

 

“Oh, very well, if you must,” the woman said, clearly biting back a smile. “Say, what’s your name? I don’t think I caught it.”

 

“I’m Sakura Hatake.”

 

“Pleased to meet you, Hatake-san,” the old woman said, “My name is Aiya.”

 

.

 

Sakura shakes her head one last time over Sasuke’s ridiculousness before pulling away to go collect Aiya.

 

“You caught me on my last run,” Sakura told Sasuke. “I’ll be right back.”

 

She returned with Aiya, and introduced her to Sasuke and then to Sasuke’s newest acquisitions. For some reason, she decided she wanted Juugo to walk her the rest of the way, and Juugo accepted, sounding pleased but also nervous. 

 

“You’ll be fine,” Sasuke told Juugo.

 

“Of course,” Juugo replied. 

 

Sakura didn’t understand what that meant, but decided to not ask right then and instead lean heavily on Sasuke because she missed him. She might not be able to have more than regular teammate-like style shows of affection, but she’d take what she could get. 

 

“I can’t wait to be home,” he says softly, into Chika’s fur to muffle his voice further. 

 

“Me neither,” Sakura agreed, and tried not to find his ever-soft voice utterly enchanting. She failed, of course. “What do you think our idiot’s gotten up to since the last time either of us were home?”

 

Sasuke shrugged. 

 

Sakura nodded. “Probably something, but yeah, impossible to guess. I kind of wonder how his mind works, but at the same time I’m halfway sure he’s like, half trickster spirit. Following his ramblings is enough for me, honestly, and even that…”

 

Sasuke snorted. “Yeah.”

 

Sakura noticed Karin, Juugo, Aiya, and Suigetsu watching them, but ignored them. Sasuke was her teammate, it wasn’t weird for her to lean on him like this, right? She particularly ignored Aiya’s cackle of glee. It wasn’t what she thought, and there was no point in arguing with the old woman, because she’d only be convinced of her own opinion further.

 

“Oh,” Sakura said, suddenly remembering, “How much paperwork do you think your brother is going to make us do? I know he was trying to keep it all simple and concise, but paperwork’s paperwork.”

 

“Not much,” Sasuke said. “Mission report, probably. Maybe an expenses report. Naruto asked him to not make anyone do too much.”

 

“Yeah, true,” Sakura agreed, also remembering Naruto’s rants on behalf of the Third Hokage about how much paperwork the man had to do. “I thought it was just your brother being your brother about conciseness.”

 

Sasuke stopped suddenly and barked out a laugh. “Itachi? Concise?”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes and tugged on his arm to get him walking again. “For a regular person, Sasuke, not an Uchiha. I know he’s the wordiest Uchiha ever to live, alright? Jeez.”

 

“They fight like an old married couple,” Suigetsu complained. “Fuck, dudes, get a room already or something.”

 

Sakura flushed and didn’t look at Sasuke. “Hey, shut up. We’re not dating, you know!”

 

“No,” Sasuke agreed, and if Sakura were a lesser ninja she’d have missed the odd regretful note to his voice. “We’re not.”

 

“Oh, I know young love when I see it,” Aiya cackled. “You’re just being foolish!”

 

Sakura risked a glance and saw that his ears were as red as her face felt. Huh. 

 

“Anyway,” Sakura said loudly, “We should see Takumi soon. He’s our boatman. We’ve only got the one right now, but I think he’s training a couple of people last I heard.”

 

“Can’t we just waterwalk?” Karin asked. “It seems easier, is all.”

 

Sasuke shook his head. “It’s called Uzushiogakure for a reason.”

 

“There’s a lot of whirlpools,” Sakura explained, “And most of them are really dangerous. It’s too risky for new people, and I think only Kisame and Naruto can actually navigate them on foot so far. Takumi’s the only one who knows the right path in.”

 

As Sakura said, they reached the little dock and Takumi’s little motorboat. He was perched in the driver’s seat, slowly making his way through a box of pocky. 

 

“Ooh!” Sakura said as soon as she saw the pocky, “Those luxury good traders I found finally pulled through?”

 

“Yep,” Takumi said, holding out the box of pocky to her. She took one. “I can tell you Itachi-kun is terribly pleased. I think he took just about a third of the stock of all the sweets.”

 

Sasuke snorted in amusement and climbed into the boat and settled into a seat. 

 

“Yeah, of course it’s to be expected,” Takumi agreed. “Your big brother sure does have a hell of a sweet tooth, doesn’t he? I swear he inhaled at least three boxes in the first minute they were in the village.”

 

Sakura savored the pocky as she took her usual seat next to Takumi. It had been weeks since she’d had anything sweet, and while she didn’t have as bad of a sweet tooth as Itachi did, she did love sweet things. 

 

Karin and Suigetsu followed Sasuke’s lead climbed aboard. Juugo gently helped Aiya into the boat before climbing in after. Sakura was finding herself fond of Juugo, if she were honest. 

 

“Here’s the pamphlets,” Takumi said, handing Karin, Suigetsu, Juugo, and Aiya each a slim packet. “You’ll want to read it. Itachi don’t like it much when people don’t read it, and he can be a bit frightening when he’s upset.”

 

Karin immediately opened the pamphlet and began reading it. Suigetsu barely skimmed it before dropping on the floor of the boat. Aiya loudly asked Juugo to read it to her because her eyesight was going and she didn’t want to strain her eyes to read such small text. He graciously agreed. 

 

Takumi shook his head. “Your funeral, son. Stay seated, you lot. I don’t care if you’re ninja, this is a rough ride and I won’t have you standing while I’m driving, you hear?”

 

Sakura was by far used to the ride by now, and even enjoyed it. Taiki didn’t as much, as evidenced by his insistence she send him on ahead through the summoning seals the moment she was in Sasuke’s company. 

 

Sasuke, she knew, also enjoyed the ride, though most wouldn’t know it by his sour expression. He only looked sour because Chika threw up half of the time and refused to be sent ahead of him for any reason, so Sasuke was constantly anticipating being thrown up upon. 

 

Soon, though the docks of Uzushio drew closer, and Sakura spotted a familiar orange figure standing as far out as he possibly could. 

 

“He’s in orange again,” Sakura said over the waves chopping against the side of the boat. 

 

“It’s too hot for the bomber jacket,” Sasuke replied. “He figured out that seal on your kimono top and applied it to a haori.”

 

“How the hell did he find an orange one?” Sakura demanded. 

 

Sasuke shrugged. 

 

Takumi cut the engine and pulled into the dock as gracefully as he always did, coming to a complete stop just next to Naruto. 

 

“Hey, guys,” Naruto said. “I missed you.”

 

“You don’t have to anymore,” Sasuke said. 

 

Sakura grinned. It was good to be home. 


	7. interlude: Itachi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's finals week for me, so you're getting a shorter chapter, unfortunately. But! on the bright side, it's an interlude about my boy itachi!

Itachi knew he didn’t deserve everything he’d gotten in the past months. He’d committed familicide on a scale he was sure he’d set a record for, he’d betrayed the country he loved, and he’d tortured his beloved little brother. He’d expected to not see Sasuke until Sasuke was ready to kill him. He’d expected he’d die, and have just one last chance to give Sasuke the affectionate forehead poke he’d missed so badly. He’d expected to die a villain, as he should have.

 

Yet, here he was. In a new village, helping run it. Sasuke had forgiven him, in his own way. He had close friends who trusted him. He had small children who looked up to him and begged him to teach them anything he could. He was loved and trusted, here, and he didn’t deserve an ounce of it.

 

“Hey, Itachi-chan, stop brooding,” Naruto said, prodding him between his ribs painfully. “I need you to stop making the kids sad with your self-loathing. You’re setting a bad example, y’know.”

 

When he looked up to see if his brooding was actually affecting them, all three of Itachi’s aides suddenly found excuses to look in any direction that put their faces out of Itachi’s view.

 

“My apologies,” Itachi said, and forcefully bottled his lingering feelings thoroughly. “Did you need something else?”

 

Naruto tilted his head. “You know I don’t mean you should bottle up those feelings, right? That’s not healthy, y’know. I know it’s easier said than done, but you should try to not, like, hate yourself anymore.”

 

Itachi sometimes forgot that Naruto’s team was fluent in Uchiha microexpressions and could, in fact, tell exactly what was going on in his head. It was quite eerie, though somehow endearing at the same time.

 

“As you said,” Itachi replied blandly, “Easier said than done.”

 

Naruto shook his head. “Anyway, Akari-san sent word that you’re late to your appointment, and Sasuke will take it out on me and you both if you miss too many, so you’d better get going, y’know.”

 

Itachi looked to the clock and found his eyes widening in alarm. He was indeed late, by nearly half an hour. He hadn’t intended to be, as that would worry his brother when he found out about it, he’d just gotten distracted.

 

As he apologized to Naruto and quickly tidied his workspace before leaving, he realized it had been a long, long time since he’d been comfortable enough to lose track of time. He was losing his touch, and he hated it, but at the same time, he felt like maybe, possibly, it was a good thing.

 

He walked through the streets at his usual sedate pace. He was late either way, and Akari-san was sure to scold him, but he couldn’t bring himself to ever hurry through these streets.

 

Uzushiogakure was so very different from Konoha. It wasn’t nearly as populated, of course, and they (They, he realizes, meant him as well) were still rebuilding. Still, the streets were draped in vibrantly colored cloths to protect pedestrians from the bright sun, and the noise of dozens of happy citizens and content shinobi washed over him like the waves on the beaches at the edge of their little island city. Even the people were more vibrantly dressed- there was little of the brown and black and deep green common to Konohagakure, and much in the way of orange, bright green, blue, and red.

 

Even Itachi himself couldn’t escape the vibrant colors- after the second time he’d nearly fainted while wearing his usual clothes, Akari had insisted he at least wear some loose covering in a lighter color to keep the sun from cooking him alive. He’d put off acquiring something long enough that she and Naruto acquired something for him, and now he was forced to wear a loose, white, linen haori over a new red tank top and looser pants, which were thankfully black. When he’d gone looking for his old cotton tshirt and closer fitted pants, he’d found them mysteriously missing and a too-innocent expression upon Naruto’s face.

 

It was fine, he’d admitted after a few months. He did enjoy being able to walk in the sun without the worry of fainting, and someone had taken the time to hand-embroider the Uchiha fan on the back. It felt good to wear his clan’s symbol again, even if he felt he didn’t deserve it.

 

Sasuke, upon seeing him wearing it during a drop-off, had smiled just slightly and nodded in a way that Itachi knew he approved. His brother’s approval had eased some of his anxiety over wearing a symbol of the people he’d murdered, though not all of it.

 

“Oh, fuck off,” Sasuke had snapped when he’d let slip that he didn’t deserve all of the kindness he was being shown, and then promptly insisted that Itachi stop feeling guilty about murdering his clan.

 

As Naruto said: easier said than done. Still, Itachi made the effort. He wasn’t always successful, but he tried. Itachi trusted his brother’s judgement, even if he didn’t understand it or necessarily agree.

 

Akari was waiting for him in the doorway of the newly-built hospital. Itachi greeted her with a smile and a shamed duck of his head.

 

“You’re lucky there’s not enough people here yet for me to be busy,” she said, wagging her finger at him. “Naruto said you lost track of time doing paperwork and being sad, so I’ll forgive you just this once, understand?”

 

“I understand,” Itachi said.

 

.

 

He was given a relatively clean bill of health in under fifteen minutes. His illness was still present, of course, but it was slowly going into remission as his stress levels decreased, apparently. Akari thought he’d have a good chance to live to be an old man if he kept decreasing his stress levels.

 

Itachi knew it was genuinely impossible for his stress levels to rise to the level they had been at when he’d thought Sasuke would never forgive him, so he found himself agreeing with her, though silently. It wouldn’t do to test fate by saying it aloud.

 

Kisame waved at him as he passed by a small cafe that had finally opened.

 

“Join me, Ita-chan!” Kisame called.

 

Itachi let himself roll his eyes. He might agree that such nicknames made him less frightening to the civilians, but that didn’t mean he necessarily enjoyed being called such names.

 

(Though, the truth was: he really did. It sort of felt like he was getting back the childhood he’d never been able to have. Still, he didn’t have to admit to liking such childish nicknames.)

 

Itachi approached Kisame and took the seat across from him. There was already a cup waiting for him, and he wasted no time in filling it with tea from the pot.

 

“I got something I wanna ask you,” Kisame said. “Been trying to catch you for days, actually.”

 

“You know where I work,” Itachi pointed out.

 

Kisame shrugged. “I didn’t want to interrupt if you were working on something important.”

 

“What did you want to ask me, Kisame-kun? I will answer to the best of my ability, as always.” Itachi said, and took a sip of his tea. It was sweet, just the way he liked it.

 

“Well,” Kisame said, grinning sharply. “It’s not a question, actually, but a request. You should take on a genin team, Itachi. You’ve already got three brats hanging on your every word. It’s a damn shame you’re not teaching them anything more than how to do paperwork.”

 

Itachi delicately set down the tea cup and placed his hands in his lap so they wouldn’t shake.

 

“Don’t say no right away,” Kisame said before Itachi could speak. “Hear me out, first.”

 

“Okay,” Itachi agreed.

 

“Right, so,” Kisame said, and started in on his clearly rehearsed explanation, “You’re a great teacher, first of all. I’ve seen you with those little goblins of yours: you can’t help but teach them things you don’t mean to. You’re a bit of a pushover, sure, but not when it counts. You’ll for sure manage to get all three of them to jonin without dying. And, even though I know you don’t care, it’ll be good for you, too.”

 

He’s absolutely right, Itachi realized, and changed his mind sharply. He’d been ready to disagree no matter what Kisame said, but he was right. He was strong, even with his illness, and he’d turned out to be surprisingly good at teaching. He’d caught himself showing all three of his aides various jutsu when they’d requested, and shown them how to do it themselves without thinking, when it was safe for them to do so. Of course, Kisame didn’t need to know he’d changed Itachi’s mind so easily.

 

“You misunderstand,” Itachi says with a smile. “I wasn’t agreeing to hear you out. I was agreeing with your suggestion.”

 

Kisame laughed loudly. “No you weren’t, Ita-chan, but if it makes you feel better to pretend, I won’t stop you. Also, you should  make up a form for that, by the way. And for taking on an apprentice. I’ve heard rumblings of jonin wanting to snatch up kids to teach, recently.”

 

Itachi bowed his head in agreement and continued sipping at his tea.

 

.

 

“Mao, Yui, Hachiro,” Itachi said as he finished making dozens of copies of the new paperwork he’d finally finished drafting. “Come here. I need you to sign some paperwork I’ve decided is necessary.”

 

He was immediately surrounded by his aides and students to be, and he found himself biting back a smile at the thought. They were good kids, and didn’t crowd him, but still leaned towards him, looking at him with wide, curious eyes.

 

“What is it?” Mao asked, reaching her hand out to receive the paperwork.

 

“Yeah, I thought we were done signing stuff,” Yui agreed. “You said you didn’t want anyone to have to sign more than three things to be a citizen, so what gives?”

 

Itachi set the copy he’d filled out on his tidy desk, facing his three aides.

 

“This is not required for citizenship, it’s required for jonin who wish to have a genin team,” Itachi told them. “Normally, you wouldn’t have to worry about this until you’re ten or so, but since we haven’t got an academy yet, Naruto-kun has agreed to make some exceptions.”

 

“You want us to be-?” Hachiro asked, sounding faint.

 

“How come we have to sign it, though?” Yui asked. “I thought genin teams were assigned. Not that I’m not pleased you chose us-!”

 

Itachi dipped his head. Yui always did ask the right questions. “It’s true that all of the other villages assign teams to a teacher, but the Three Kage think it would be better to do things differently. I, myself, have seen many cases of a teacher not being fit to teach but forced to anyway. It nearly always ends in the death of their students. I’ve convinced the Three that it is better for Jonin to be volunteers, and to take on their teams younger.”

 

“Last I heard,” Mao said skeptically, “Sasuke-sama wanted to raise the age to sixteen ‘cause of what happened to you. How’d you convince him?”

 

“He’s not wrong that I was promoted to genin too early,” Itachi told her easily. “I was much too young, in fact. Six year olds should still be training to kill, not actually killing. As for convincing him, I merely provided an alternative: graduation age is strictly between ten and sixteen, the academy will be sorted not by age but by competence in the major skills, and a student can graduate when they prove to be of genin level in at least four of the major skills.”

 

He could see the question in Yui’s eyes about the major skills, but easily redirected her by tapping the single sheet of paperwork still waiting for their signatures.

 

“The reason you have to sign,” Itachi said, “is to ensure there are better matches between teachers and students. If any of you three choose not to sign, I will understand, and I will not be upset. I merely wanted to present this as an option.”

 

“Oh, shut up,” Mao said, and pulled one of the pens in her hair out to scrawl her name on the first line. “Of course I want you as a teacher! Here, Yui.”

 

Mao handed Yui the pen and also pushed the sheet towards her. Yui signed the paper delicately and passed the pen and the paper over to Hachiro, who also signed and finally passed the sheet back to Itach and the pen back to Mao, who slipped it back into her hair like it had never left.

 

Itachi gently touched the corner of the paper.

 

“Are you certain?” he asked, then startled. He hadn’t meant to ask that aloud.

 

Mao scoffed. “Itachi-sensei, don’t act dumb. You heard Naruto-sama tell you to stop being sad. Listen to him! He’s one of the Three for a reason, you know!”

 

“As Mao-chan said,” Yui agreed, nodding once. “We value your teachings and look forward to many more years with you as our teacher. Thank you for taking us on.”

 

“Y-yeah,” Hachiro agreed. “You’re a badass shinobi and a badass teacher, and now you’re gonna be our badass teacher. What more could we ask for?”

 

Itachi smiled and felt something in him ease that he hadn’t known was tense.

 

“Well, if you’re certain,” Itachi said finally, and reached into one of his desk drawers as he continued, “You will meet me at the usual time tomorrow, but instead of meeting here, you will meet me at Training Ground Thirteen. We will meet there for the foreseeable future.”

 

He placed three brand new headbands on the desk in front of him. The metal plate had the symbol Naruto had created to replace the Old Uzushiogakure symbol: a swirl with three unfinished triangles surrounding it and pointing outwards. The cloth was a bright red, a common color in Uzushiogakure.

 

“You’ve got to wear one, too,” Hachiro said as he tied his new headband around his waist.

 

“Yeah,” Mao agreed, putting hers on her forehead, as was traditional. “You’re our teacher. You gotta look the part! C’mon, sensei! Don’t be a bad influence already!”

 

Itachi laughs softly. They’re right. He’d been putting it off. It was just another thing he didn’t feel he deserved. Now, however, he had a team to teach, and there was no going back from that. He dug another headband out of his desk, then paused. He had no idea how he wanted to wear this. If he wore it traditionally, that would feel like just another betrayal to Konoha, but that was what he was used to.

 

Yui took the headband from his hands and placed the metal plate on the top of his head, just past where his bangs separated from the part in his hair. She tied the cloth under his ponytail, and nodded once.

 

“Looks good,” Mao decided.

 

“Yeah, that’s how Sakura-sama wears hers,” Hachiro agreed.

 

Itachi bowed his head in thanks and told them to go home to their families and celebrate. They left, cheerful and bumping each other in excitement, and Itachi couldn’t help but feel like he still didn’t deserve them or any of this.

 

But _they_ did, he knew. Those kids deserved the best education in the world, deserved to be the best of the next generation. Itachi knew he had been the best of his generation, and he would make damn sure that, one day, these kids were as feared as he was.


	8. naruto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yikes its been waaaayyy longer than i meant to be!!! this chapter was fighting me the whole way, though. I had to delete the first draft of it because it just wasn't working. chapters are also going to get a little shorter, honestly, because the 4500 a week i was aiming for before is kind of unrealistic for this coming semester. 
> 
> thank you all for being so patient! enjoy!!!

Naruto appreciated Itachi more than he could say, honestly. And he could say a lot! So really, Itachi was one of his favorite people ever aside from Sasuke and Sakura. (Hotaru didn’t count as people, because she was a dog, but she was his top favorite dog, so she didn’t mind that, either.)

 

Right now, he especially appreciated Itachi because he’d blocked the day out that Sakura and Sasuke were due home for the last time after their travels. Naruto didn’t have to worry about any important shit, because Itachi had made sure everything that could be taken care of was, and he’d spent the morning doing all of the rest of it. Itachi had kept him until one of his genin came running in to report that she’d seen Sakura’s hair on the horizon through a spyglass.

 

“Go,” Itachi said, smiling faintly. “I’ll be by soon as well.”

 

Naruto beamed and shouted his thanks over his shoulder as he hopped out of the window, with Hotaru right on his heels. He knew the rooftop route to the docks by heart, and ignored the usual greetings called to him from the streets below. He was on a mission to see his teammates together again, and nothing would stop or delay him. He landed on the docks with enough time to do a cool pose on the very edge of the dock- his toes were over the edge, even- and let his new orange haori flutter in the wind dramatically. 

 

And then, right as Takumi drew his little boat in, smooth as ever, Naruto felt the tension he’d been carrying for so long just evaporate off of him. His team was here, and they were safe, and Sasuke was smiling and telling him he’d never have to miss them ever again, and everything was finally just…

 

Right. 

 

Later that night, after Sasuke had gotten his last misfits settled and Sakura made good on a promise she’d made and all three of them were lying in bed together like they had when they were kids, with all of their dogs piled on them. Naruto didn’t bother sleeping; instead he was basking in the presence of his People, in Uchiha terms. 

 

Sakura was dead asleep, sprawled across his and Sasuke’s legs, and snoring a little bit. Sasuke was silent and scrunched into a ball around Chika and pressing his forehead to Naruto’s extremely numb arm. 

 

A shadow appeared on the windowsill, lit by the half-moon outside, and Naruto barely managed to suppress an unhappy whine. Of course the peace and comfort couldn’t last. 

 

The figure revealed itself to be Mao, one of Itachi’s kids, and she signed to him her message:  _ Teacher reports red clouds on far shore. Poison and Explosives. Camp, no movement. Orders? _

 

Naruto lifted his free arm and gave her a thumbs up before signing back and affirmation and an order to keep him updated if they do decide to move. 

 

She disappeared and he let his head back down gently and decided he did, in fact, need some sleep if he was going to deal with the fucking Akatsuki in the morning. He only hoped they would actually wait until the morning and not move in on them in the middle of the night like jackasses. 

 

.

 

“Naruto,” Sakura said, shaking him awake furiously, “Naruto, what the fuck?”

 

He sat up and rubbed his eyes blearily. “...Huh?”

 

“Are the Akatsuki really just fucking-” she flails her arm in the direction of the far shore. “-Like, waiting to come over? And you didn’t think to wake us up and tell us? That the Akatsuki, who Itachi has told us wants the tailed beasts, is waiting outside? Probably to try to fucking-!”

 

“Oh,” Naruto said, “Yeah, I didn’t want to deal with that without enough sleep. Team Paperwork was on watch duty last night, and I told them to wake me up if they did anything, so it’s not like I, y’know, just ignored it or whatever.”

 

Sasuke snorted. “Actually responsible of you, dumbass.”

 

“I can be responsible!” Naruto protested. “I’ve been responsible this whole time, y’know!” 

 

Sakura threw clothes at both him and Sasuke. “Shut up and get dressed so we can deal with bullshit. Boys…” 

 

Itachi and his team were waiting in their living room in various states of awakeness. Itachi, of course, looked perfectly awake and aware, sitting patiently in the second most comfortable chair in the room. Mao was draped over the most comfortable chair in the room, snoring loudly. Yui was standing not quite at attention next to Itachi, and holding the clipboard that Naruto had made the mistake of giving her on her birthday. Hachiro was slumped on the floor next to Mao, dozing slightly. 

 

“Jeez, Itachi-chan, send your kids home to sleep!” Naruto said, sweeping into the room. “Don’t let Mao drool on that chair, either, it drives Bull crazy.”

 

Sakura rolled her eyes at him, he could feel it, but he ignored that in favor of wandering into the kitchen to make some breakfast for all of them. The kids especially deserved a nice breakfast since they’d been up all damn night on watch duty.

 

“I tried,” Itachi said, lifting Mao’s head and placing a cloth napkin he’d produced from who knows where under her mouth before gently lowering her to the chair again, “But it’s futile to argue with them.”

 

“Yes it is, Itachi-sensei,” Yui said. “Naruto-sama, Sakura-sama, Sasuke-san, when you’re ready.”

 

“Go ahead,” Sakura said. 

 

“Can’t it wait until after food?” Naruto asked, leaning over the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. “Please? I’m so hungry and this is gonna be so fuckin’ messy to deal with. We have time for breakfast, at least.”

 

“No,” Sasuke said even as he joined Naruto in the kitchen and set about making rice. “Yui, go ahead.”

 

“At approximately 0230, Mao spotted two unusual figures making camp about two miles from Takumi’s cabin,” Yui began, “she relayed this to Itachi-sensei, who immediately activated his Mangekyou. He has since been reprimanded and examined by Akari-sempai, but he was able to confirm the identities.”

 

“Their names are Deidara and Sasori,” Itachi said, picking up where she left off. “As I’ve told you, Deidara is well-known for his unique ability to chew clay and turn it into explosive material and Sasori of the Sand is an expert in Suna’s puppeteering arts and has turned himself into one. Deidara is also unpredictable in his movements and actions, and Sasori is a master of poisons. I’ve taken the liberty of assigning Kisame to the docks for the day in case they make a move towards Uzushio.”

 

“Good, that’s smart,” Sakura said, sitting on the couch opposite of Itachi. “Kisame knows them as well as you do, and is most equipped to fight them if they approach. But I don’t think I want Deidara anywhere near the village- we’re still building, and Tenzou will be furious if he has to rebuild anything or if we need to have Tazuna come back.”

 

“Yes, this is true,” Itachi agreed, and continued conversing with Sakura about strategies and shit that Naruto honestly couldn’t care any less about. 

 

“Sakura and Itachi have it handled,” Naruto whispered to Sasuke. “Wanna make something fancy?”

 

Sasuke’s lip twitched just a little and he nodded slightly. 

 

Naruto beamed, and the two of them got to work making a nice traditional breakfast with only a small argument over whether to cook up some fish or to just use the leftover tofu in the fridge. Sasuke won, and Naruto ended up sending a clone to the market to pick up a fresh fish even though it looked like it could rain at any minute.

 

“Okay,” Naruto said, leaning his whole body over the counter separating the kitchen from the living room to put plates down on the living room side, “Breakfast is done! Wake the kiddos, we made plenty for everyone.”

 

Sakura jumped a little bit and gave Naruto a very surprised expression. 

 

“I told you we had time for breakfast,” he said, grinning at her cheekily, pulling back so Sasuke could put down the pans of food onto  hot pads. “Come eat. Sasuke even made super cute little onigiri for the kids.”

 

“Onigiri?” Mao said, her head jerking up. “I love onigiri.”

 

“We know,” Hachiro said, already sitting at the counter and eagerly staring down the miso soup. “You never shut up about it. You’re as bad as Naruto-sama and ramen.”

 

“Nobody’s as bad as Naruto with ramen,” Sakura said as she moved into the kitchen. 

 

“True,” Naruto agreed, “I’m like, the king of ramen, y’know.”

 

“Anyway,” Sakura said, rolling her eyes, “I was thinking a good strategy for dealing with Sasori would be to-”

 

“No,” Sasuke said. 

 

Naruto nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, yeah, no work at the table! Relax, eat, and then we’ll go out and deal with the creeps. Even if they got past the whirlpools, Kisame would fuck them up. We’ve got at least twenty minutes, okay?”

 

“Oh, fine,” Sakura said, rolling her eyes and tossing her hands a little. “Fine, we won’t worry about the freaks on our border who probably want to kill you by ripping out the kyuubi. Fine.” 

 

.

 

“Like, please don’t be mad if I can’t do it right,” the kid said even as she revved the engine of her boat, “Takumi-sensei says I can do it right but I haven’t done this with other people by myself and like, you have to take weight into consideration when driving a boat and it’s all stormy looking outside and-”

 

“Kid, kid,” Naruto said, putting a hand on her shoulder, “You’re fine. You just have to get us past the whirlpools and we can go the rest of the way and you can go home. We might end up fighting these guys, y’know, so you don’t want to be in the way of that.”

 

“Okay, okay,” she said, “I can do that. Right. Okay.”

 

Naruto ignored Sakura and Sasuke’s skeptical stares. Takumi said the kid was good, so she had to be. And even if she did fuck up, he totally had enough chakra to navigate the whirlpools while carrying his team and their dogs. Shadow clones were awesome. 

 

“Okay,” Sakura said once all three of them and their dozen dogs were standing on the water and the kid was weaving through the whirlpools again, “She’s pretty good.”

 

“I told you,” Naruto said, “Now let’s go see what these fuckers want.”

 

As they approached, Naruto heard one say, “Oh, looks like we don’t have to storm the gates, yeah? They came right to us with what we’re looking for. Leader better be pleased about this...”

 

“Shut up, Deidara.”

 

“Hey, guys, what’s up?” Naruto said, strolling into the clearing they’d set up camp in like it was just a regular training ground with people he knew instead of extremely dangerous criminals. “Wanna tell us why you’re lurking on the shore like creeps? Itachi really didn’t like that! Had to talk him out of coming to see you himself. He’s very protective of our new village, y’know.”

 

Which was actually true. Itachi had tried to argue he and Kisame were best equipped to fight off any of the Akatsuki. Sasuke had had quite a lot to say about that, however, and after a few hours of arguing, Itachi gave up. 

 

“We don’t care about your village,” the blond one said, “We’re here to take your biiju.”

 

“Come quietly and we won’t destroy your village,” the weird squat one said. 

 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Sakura said, throwing her hands into the air for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. “Okay, plan b. Sasuke, you take Sasori, he’s got poison and he’s made of wood. Naruto, let’s go.”

 

And they went. 

 

Sakura slammed into Deidara with enough force and speed to catch him off guard and Naruto followed with a practiced kunai swipe for the man’s neck. He dodged, of course- he wasn’t S-ranked for nothing- and retaliated with a small bomb that Naruto countered with a quick shield seal. It wasn’t strong enough to block the entirety of the blast, but it did dampen it enough to only singe the hem of Sakura’s pants and give him a third degree burn that healed over right away. 

 

He caught a glimpse of Sasuke’s fire out of the corner of his eye and took just a moment to see how he was doing. He didn’t need to worry- Sasuke had already broken Sasori out of his weird hollow puppet and was belting flames at him left and right. Of course, his hands were also lit green with healing chakra, so he was probably also healing himself of some poison, which was less good. 

 

Wait, no, there was another burst of flame and Sasori lost an arm. Sasuke was doing fine. 

 

As much as he hated to see his team in danger, this is what he really, really missed. Fighting together, surrounded by all of the dogs snarling and howling, fire blasts, passing touches of healing chakra, weaving his body with Sakura’s like a dance, the whole thing. He loved it so much and hadn’t known how much he missed it until the adrenaline was pulsing through his veins. 

 

And then Sasuke screamed. 

 

“Naruto, go!” Sakura barked, and so Naruto went. 

 

He threw himself between Sasuke and a puppet, taking a hit from the thing to give Sasuke a moment to recover. He could feel the poison burning through his veins until it bubbled out of his skin with prejudice. He’d only spoken the the kyuubi a few times, and knew it hated him, but he also knew it wouldn’t let him die. That would be too inconvenient for the bastard. 

 

“You okay?” Naruto asked, fending off attacks from the freaky fucking chain tail thing coming out of his gross hollow gut.

 

“Strong poison,” Sasuke muttered as he slowly pulled a globule of something that looked like an oil spill out of his skin. “I’ve got it. Can’t get hit too much more, though.”

 

An loud explosion and a just slightly louder curse echoed behind them, and then the earth under their feet cracked and broke apart, forming small gorges in the sandy dirt around them. Naruto caught himself and Sasuke with ease- he’d had plenty of practice being surprised by Sakura’s earth-shattering punches, since she’d spent the weeks after she’d recreated Tsunade Senju’s infamous technique just punching things in glee. 

 

“We have about two minutes until Deidara unburies himself,” Sakura said, appearing at their sides, panting nearly as hard as her dog was. “We need to take out Sasori, yes?”

 

“Yeah,” Naruto agreed. “Sasuke says his poison is like, super awful. I think we’ve got to like, stab his heart?”

 

Sakura frowned at him. “His what? He’s a puppet!”

 

“Yeah, but like, he’s got that preservation-function seal on that thing on his chest and I’m at least seventy percent sure it’s his heart, and if we stab him there-”

 

“The heart is what produces chakra,” Sasuke said, scratching Chika’s ears while she bit him, healing up the rest of the wound he didn’t bother to get to. “It makes sense.”

 

“Okay, then,” Sakura said, and took Sasuke’s sword right out of its sheath. “Chika, wanna come with and keep me alive in case he poisons me?”

 

Chika barked once and hopped from Sasuke’s shoulder to Sakura’s.

 

Sasuke scowled but didn’t bother trying to stop her or his dog. “One scratch and I’ll never forgive you.”

 

“I won’t, and even I did, you would too forgive me.” Sakura snarked back and pushed off of the ground with a little chakra, sending her body flying into the air and past the barriers her punch had created.

 

“That was almost as dramatic as I usually am,” Naruto snickered. “Hotaru, Taiki, you gonna stay or help?”

 

Hotaru leapt after her, flames spouting from her mouth in her signature move. Taiki shook his head and nodded pointedly in the direction of the other Akatsuki member. 

 

“Yeah, you’re right,” Naruto agreed as he helped Sasuke to his feet. “Remember that time we went up against that guy from Lightning country? Let’s do that again, yeah?”

 

A small smile spread across Sasuke’s face and he nodded once. 

 

Now, Naruto had a lot more practice moving with Sakura. Kakashi had trained the two of them to move together perfectly, to always know exactly what their partner would do at any given time. Fighting next to Sakura was like dancing to classical music, especially now that both of them now wore kind of traditional clothes in an untraditional way. It was smooth, with practiced motions and excellent footwork.

 

Fighting next to Sasuke was more like dirty dancing in a club. The heat of Sasuke’s fire made him sweat, he didn’t move with him so much as around him, and it left both of them panting and grinning and ready for more, no matter how tiring it was. It was all energy and wild movements and ducking gouts of flame or air bullets at the last minute and bodily moving each other in and out of the way.

 

It was clear that Deidara hadn’t fought anything like them before. He’d been defending himself against him and Sakura well enough, but they fought together classically. He and Sasuke were something totally different, something that enemies almost never anticipated. 

 

“Alright, fuck this,” Deidara said after dodging three pairs of dog teeth snapping at his legs, “Let’s see how you deal with something bigger than my spiders, yeah?”

 

Naruto and Sasuke pulled back just a little to see what he would do, and Naruto felt them both realize at the same time that whatever he was making was big. 

 

“Sakura, sword!” Sasuke shouted, holding his hand out. 

 

She cursed, and Naruto realized that Sasori was still alive, but threw his sword to him and switched to trying to kill Sasori with a kunai again. Naruto knew she’d probably be fine, but still winced thinking about her getting poisoned. 

 

“Dogs, stand back,” Sasuke said, raising his sword to the sky. “Naruto, come here.”

 

“What are you-?” Naruto began to ask, and then stopped. 

 

It was raining. It had looked a little stormy earlier, but he figured they had time to get this done before it started to rain. Fighting in bad weather was always the worst!

 

“Shit, we gotta wrap this up!” Naruto shouted. “Storms here get nasty!”

 

“Not this one,” Sasuke said as his sword lit up with a familiar crackling electricity. “I need to borrow some chakra, Naruto. I’m about to do something kind of stupid.”

 

Naruto approached quickly, hesitating only a little because if Sasuke was saying he was going to do something ‘kind of’ stupid it had to be really, really fucking stupid. He set a hand on Sasuke’s shoulder and began filtering the kyuubi chakra out of his own to shove into Sasuke’s chakra coils. 

 

Deidara looked a little worried in the distance, but also looked like he was taking the time to continue building whatever it was he was building. 

 

“Kakashi-sensei taught me his signature move,” Sasuke said, projecting his voice for Deidara to hear. “The chidori. I’ve adapted it a little bit, but it takes time and certain circumstances to function right. I call it Kirin.”

 

Electricity shot up from Sasuke’s katana, into the sky. The sky darkened for a moment, and then-

 

A flash of lightning struck the ground right where Deidara stood, blinding Naruto and probably everyone else still alive after that for next minute. Naruto heard the thunder roll through the sky, echoing out into the distance, slowly quieting. When he managed to open his eyes again, the rain had stopped. The sky was the nice, bright blue he loved and had grown so used to. There were regular thin clouds in the sky instead of the dark, fluffy storm clouds. 

 

And Deidara was gone. There was a black splotch on the ground where he used to stand, and there was nothing else there. 

 

“Holy shit,” Naruto said. “Holy shit Sasuke, what the fuck?”

 

“Catch,” Sasuke replied. 

 

“Wh- oh, fuck!” Naruto barely managed to stop Sasuke’s body from hitting the ground harshly, even with the warning. “Oh, man, that really was something stupid, huh? You better not be fucking dead, asshole.”

 

Sakura appeared at their side, her hands fluttering over Sasuke’s chest frantically. “Is he okay? What happened? I saw him collapse and Sasori ran off and I- is he okay?”

 

“M’fine,” Sasuke grumbled, his voice even quieter than usual. “Tired. Kirin uses too much chakra.”

 

“He had to borrow some of mine,” Naruto added. “I don’t think that that crazy Kirin move did any damage, so I think this is just chakra exhaustion, right Sasuke?”

 

Sasuke grunted: in Uchiha-speak, that was an affirmation. 

 

“Right,” Sakura said, her voice stronger and more confident. “Let’s get him to Akemi. I don’t think we have to worry about either of them, at least for now. Sasori ran away, and if Deidara isn’t dead, he did too.”

 

“He’s dead,” Sasuke grumbled. “Saw it. Sharingan.”

 

Naruto shook his head, exasperated, and lifted Sasuke into his arms. “If he’s awake enough to argue, he’s probably fine and just needs a nap to sleep off the chakra exhaustion. Let’s go see Takumi and catch a ride home, yeah?”

 

Sakura nodded and stood with him. “Yeah, let’s go home.”


End file.
